The DPRK Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday in this connection:

The south Korean puppet forces claimed before any others that they made a retaliatory firing because the DPRK's side fired one shell first, but this was a completely sheer lie and fabrication.

On Thursday the DPRK's side clarified that it did not fire even a single bullet or single shell at the enemy's side first nor it made any accidental firing.

The recent shelling incident unilaterally committed by the south Korean puppet forces was neither incidental nor an accident but a carefully calculated provocation committed by themselves.

It is a trite method of the successive south Korean rulers to cook up a shocking incident in the area along the MDL whenever they face a crisis in a bid to divert the attention of public at home and abroad elsewhere and seek a way out of it.

The recent incident was an undisguised provocation aimed to tide over their crisis, get breathing spell and strain the situation on the Korean Peninsula to an extreme pitch of tension and thus spoil other's festival.

The enemy cooked up the "mine explosion" case in an area along the Military Demarcation Line and resumed broadcasting for psychological warfare against the north under that pretext in a bid to rattle its nerve to the worst extent, while staging large-scale joint military exercises together with the U.S. By escalating the tension this way, they carried out the artillery firing after creating psychological situation to make the international community think the DPRK's side might fire one shell first and are now insisting it was "firing in retaliation" against the former's shelling.

However, the enemy were seriously mistaken this time.

They tried to divert elsewhere the attention of the world people through the shelling, becoming unable to escape the fate of perishing in the flames kindled by themselves.

The General Staff of the Korean People's Army sent an ultimatum to the south Korean puppet Ministry of Defense at 17:00, Pyongyang time, on August 20 that a strong military action would be launched unless it stops the anti-DPRK broadcasting for psychological warfare and dismantles all psywar means within 48 hours.

The Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea examined and ratified the offensive operation plan of the KPA Front Command to launch retaliatory strike and counterattack on the whole length of the front all at once. It also approved the decision of the KPA General Staff in which it sent an ultimatum to the south Korean puppet Ministry of Defense.

Supreme leader Kim Jong Un issued an order of the supreme commander of the Korean People's Army that the frontline large combined units of the KPA should enter a wartime state to be fully battle ready to launch surprise operations and the area along the front be put in a semi-war state from 17:00 on Friday.

The situation which has reached the brink of war is now hardly controllable.

We have exercised our self-restraint for decades.

Now no one's talk about self-restraint is helpful to putting the situation under control.

The army and people of the DPRK are poised not to just counteract or make any retaliation but not to rule out an all-out war to protect the social system, their own choice, at the risk of their lives.