Kim's comments came
during a visit on Mu Island with troops who participated in the 2010
shelling of South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island, an attack that North Korea
at the time said South Korea provoked by holding war games off their
shared coast.
"He ordered the service
persons of the detachment to be vigilant against every move of the enemy
and not to miss their gold chance to deal at once deadly counter blows
at the enemy, if even a single shell is dropped on the waters or in the
area where the sovereignty of (North Korea) is exercised," the state-run
KCNA news agency reported.
The warning followed an
announcement by the United States and South Korea that their joint
"Ulchi Freedom Guardian" training exercises would begin Monday and
conclude by August 31.
North Korea was informed of the dates of the exercises by the U.N. armistice commission.
The Neutral Nations
Supervisory Commission, which was established by the Korean Armistice
Agreement that brought about an end to the Korean War, will supervise
the exercise, South Korea and the United States military said in a joint
statement. The commission includes representatives from Switzerland,
China and other nations selected by the United Nations.
Washington and Pyongyang
have no diplomatic relations. North and South Korea have no formal ties
and remain technically in a state of war since a 1953 truce that ended
the Korean War.
During the visit with troops, Kim observed Yeonpyeong Island "clearly visible from the post," KCNA reported.
The Yeonpyeong attack in
November 2010 was the first direct artillery assault on South Korea by
North Korea since 1953, when an armistice ending the fighting.
Two civilians and two
South Korean marines died in the attack, which South Korea's government
at the time called a "definite military provocation" by North Korea.
The sparsely populated
Yeonpyeong is located just south of the Northern Limit Line, the line
drawn in 1953 by the United Nations at the end of the Korean War. The
United Nations drew the line three nautical miles from the North Korean
coast and put five islands close to the coast under South Korean
control.
That was supposed to be a
temporary arrangement. But in the absence of a full peace agreement,
the Northern Limit Line remains in place.
North Korea has been virtually isolated from the world by international sanctions over its development of a nuclear program.
CNN's Ben Brumfield contributed to this report.
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