North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong declared that Pyongyang “will never” regard Seoul as a diplomatic counterpart, denouncing South Korea for showing a “dual personality” by proposing peace initiatives while pressing ahead with large-scale military exercises with the United States. She said the South is the North’s “most hostile state” and urged her foreign ministry to devise countermeasures. Her remarks were aimed at South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who has moved to revive a 2018 inter-Korean military accord and dismantled loudspeakers that once blasted propaganda across the border. Lee has appealed for talks without preconditions, but Pyongyang has dismissed the outreach and intensified criticism of the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield drills, calling them an invasion rehearsal. Tensions escalated further after Pyongyang accused Seoul of a “serious provocation” when South Korean forces fired more than 10 warning shots at North Korean soldiers near the Demilitarised Zone. According to a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, Army Lieutenant General Ko Jong Chol said the soldiers had been building a permanent barrier along the frontier and warned of unspecified countermeasures if such incidents recur. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that at about 3 p.m. local time on Tuesday, several North Korean troops briefly crossed the military demarcation line while working inside the heavily fortified border area. The soldiers withdrew after the warning shots, and no injuries were reported, the JCS said. The flare-up underscores the fragile state of inter-Korean relations. Since last year Pyongyang has been fortifying the border and expanding its nuclear and missile programmes, while Seoul and Washington maintain that their joint drills are defensive. Analysts say the combination of harsh rhetoric from Kim Yo Jong and the latest border incident heightens the risk of miscalculation on a peninsula where the two Koreas remain technically at war.