N. KOREA VOWS TO DEPLOY TROOPS TO BORDER AREA

[Anchor Lead]

North Korea has announced today it will dispatch military troops to the Kumgangsan area, the Kaesong Industrial Complex and the DMZ guard posts. It also added that Kim Yo-jong vehemently rejected Seoul's offer to send its envoys on June 15.

[Pkg]

​North Korea's general staff department, equivalent to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced additional military plans on Wednesday. The department's spokesperson said regiments will be stationed in the Kumgangsan Mountain area and the Kaesong Industrial Complex. Troops at the DMZ guard posts, which had been withdrawn in line with the inter-Korean military agreement, will be stationed there again to ramp up border protection. Also, more artillery troops will be stationed on the southwestern front, and military drills will be resumed in border areas. Through the statement, Pyongyang warns of militarization of the Kumgangsan Mountain area and the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the symbols of peace in the 2000s, and scrapping the inter-Korean military agreement. The General Staff Department vowed to obtain approval for such actions from the Workers' Party's Central Military Commission as soon as possible. Pyongyang also claims Seoul had offered to send its envoys on June 15, the day marking the 20th anniversary of the June 15th Joint Declaration. It said Seoul wanted to have National Security Office director Chung Eui-yong and National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon visit the North as soon as possible. The regime states Kim Yo-jong vehemently rejected the offer by calling it a "tactless and sinister proposal." She stressed Seoul must walk the walk instead of pretending to be trying to improve the situation with its unfeasible proposals. Kim Yo-jong and the North's United Front Department director Jang Kum-chol issued additional statements on Wednesday to blast the South for its response. She called President Moon Jae-in's address marking the 20th anniversary of the June 15 Joint Declaration "a brazen act of flattery." Jang Kum-chol criticized Cheong Wa Dae's expression of regret at the National Security Council meeting on Tuesday, emphasizing the current situation once again proves that an enemy will always be just an enemy.