The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) Deputy Department Director of the Publicity and Information Department of the Workers' Party of Korea, Kim Yo Jong, called South Korea's recent front-line live-fire drills "suicidal hysteria" as she threatened unspecified military steps on Monday, if further provoked.

Kim issued a warning after South Korea resumed firing exercises near its tense land and sea borders with the DPRK over the past two weeks. These exercises were the first since South Korea suspended a 2018 agreement with the DPRK, which aimed to ease front-line military tensions, in June.

"The question is why the enemy kicked off such war drills near the border, suicidal hysteria, for which they will have to sustain terrible disaster,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.

She accused South Korea's government of deliberately escalating tensions to divert attention from a domestic political crisis. She stated that the riskiness of the South Korean drills is evident to all, as they occurred amid "a touch-and-go situation" following a recent trilateral military exercise between the US, South Korea, and Japan, which the DPRK perceives as a security threat.

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Kim further said, "In case it is judged according to our criteria that they violated the sovereignty of (the DPRK) and committed an act tantamount to a declaration of war, our armed forces will immediately carry out its mission and duty assigned by the (DPRK's) constitution."

A spokesperson at South Korea’s Unification Ministry, Koo Byoungsam, described Kim's statement as an attempt to trigger an internal divide in South Korea on Monday, stressing that the DPRK must first "look at its own human rights violations and the international isolation caused by its nuclear program." 

Furthermore, South Korea’s Defense Ministry stated that it will continue its live-fire drills as scheduled, but did not disclose when and where the new exercises are planned.

Heightened tensions 

Late last month, the DPRK denounced on June 30 the joint military drills by South Korea, Japan, and the United States, calling them an "Asian NATO" and warning of "fatal consequences."

It came after the Allies concluded a three-day exercise called "Freedom Edge," which involved ballistic missile and air defense drills, anti-submarine warfare, and defensive cyber training.

The three-day military training, codenamed Freedom Edge, "will focus on ballistic missile defense, air defense, anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue, maritime interdiction, and defensive cyber training," South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said at the time.

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