by Our Foreign Desk

NORTH KOREA placed its armed forces in a “quasi-state of war” yesterday following exchanges of artillery fire with the south.

South Korea fired dozens of 155mm shells across the demilitarised zone (DMZ) between the two states on Thursday following a bombardment from the North in protest at cross-border broadcasts.

A North Korean military source said that leader Kim Jong Un met with defence officials on Thursday night to approve war plans in case the incident erupted into full-scale conflict.

Korean People’s Army reconnaissance bureau director General Kim Yong Chol called an emergency briefing for foreign diplomats and military attaches in the capital Pyongyang.

Mr Kim sought support for an ultimatum to South Korea to halt loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts across the DMZ, urging diplomats not to believe “baseless fabrications” that the north attacked a loudspeaker on the southern side of the DMZ on Thursday.

Some 2,000 civilians were evacuated from the nearby county town of Yeoncheon, Yeoncheon, yesterday.

Seoul resumed the broadcasts on Monday after an 11-year lull, after blaming Pyongyang for the maiming of two soldiers by a landmine in the DMZ.

In Beijing, North Korean Ambassador Ji Jae Ryong told reporters that South Korea’s “psychological warfare” had “gone beyond the limits of tolerance.”

On Wednesday, UN ambassador Ja Song Nam asked the security council to call an urgent meeting over ongoing military exercises by the US and South Korea — which Pyongyang called a rehearsal for invasion — saying it had “unjustifiably ignored” similar previous requests.