North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is at the launch site of a solid-fuel Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, Dec. 18 in this captured photo from footage of North Korea's Korean Central Television. Yonhap

South Korea's spy agency said Thursday there is a high possibility that North Korea could carry out military provocations early next year ahead of major elections in South Korea and the United States.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) made the assessment, citing North Korea's track record of staging provocations before South Korea's general elections and Pyongyang's reinstatement of key figures involved in high-profile provocations against Seoul.

South Korea is scheduled to hold general elections in April next year, and the U.S. will hold the presidential election in November.

"There is a high possibility that North Korea could unexpectedly conduct military provocations or stage a cyberattack (on the South) in 2024, when fluid political situations are expected with the elections," the NIS said in a release.

In the months before South Korea's parliamentary elections in April 2016, North Korea carried out a series of provocations, including a fourth nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range missile in February.

In 2020, North Korea fired short-range ballistic missiles on four occasions in March alone, just weeks before South Koreans went to the polls to elect lawmakers in April.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said last week his country will not hesitate to launch a nuclear attack in the event of nuclear provocations by its enemies. At a key party meeting Wednesday, he also called for the military to "accelerate" war preparations.

The NIS said it also took note of the return of three key North Korean officials believed to be behind Pyongyang's major provocations targeting the South.

In June, Kim Yong-chol, a former North Korean spy chief, was named as an adviser to the United Front Department in charge of inter-Korean affairs.

Kim is suspected of having masterminded the North's sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan and the shelling of the western South Korean border island of Yeonpyeong in 2010. The torpedo attack killed 46 South Korean sailors, and the artillery shelling killed two Marines and two civilians.

A Seoul-led multinational investigation concluded that Pyongyang torpedoed the Cheonan warship, but the North has denied its involvement in the incident.

In August, the North's leader named Ri Yong-gil and Pak Jong-chon as the chief of the General Staff of the North Korean military and the head of the ruling party's military department, respectively. They are blamed for the explosion of three North Korean wooden-box land mines along the border in 2015. The blast seriously injured two South Korean soldiers.

North Korea has been restoring military measures it halted under a 2018 inter-Korean military accord in response to Seoul's partial suspension of the deal over the North's spy satellite launch in November. (Yonhap)