SEOUL, January 6. /TASS/. The South Korean military will take measures if North Korean artillery continues to threaten civilians, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

"North Korea's ongoing artillery fire inside areas where hostile actions are prohibited is causing tensions to rise and threatening peace on the Korean Peninsula. If North Korea continues to threaten our people with artillery fire inside areas where it is prohibited, affirming the complete collapse of the September 19, 2018 agreement, then our armed forces will also take necessary military measures," the JCS said, Yonhap reported.

The inter-Korean military agreement of September 19, 2018, established maritime buffer zones and banned directing fire toward any targets inside the zones. Pyongyang in November declined to honor the agreement, after Seoul stopped following some of the deal’s provisions.

On Friday, North Korea fired about 200 artillery shells toward two South Korean islands of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong in the Yellow Sea. That prompted the South Korean military to stage its own fire drills in response, with 400 artillery shots fired.

The South Korean JCS said the North fired artillery rounds toward Yeonpyeong again on Saturday. The South Korean military does not plan to conduct a firing exercise in response to the latest shelling.