South Korea’s military confirms N. Korea mine caused explosion in DMZ

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff on Monday confirmed that last month’s explosion in the western Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, was caused by a North Korea mine planted south of the inter-Korean border.

“At approximately 12:51 pm today, we cleared a North Korean minefield south of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), something the United Nations Command recognized as a violation of the Armistice Agreement,” the Joint Chiefs said.

The South’s military that day detonated several mines using explosives, marking Seoul’s first concrete action in response to the blast on Sept. 24, which injured three soldiers.

Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Lt. Gen. Kwon Dae-won made the remarks while announcing the findings of a field investigation by a task force into the explosion involving the Republic of Korea Army’s 25th Division in the DMZ.

“Based on the results of the UN Command’s joint investigation and scientific evidence, we concluded that one of our soldiers who was conducting routine operations in the DMZ south of the MDL sustained serious injuries from a plastic anti-personnel land mine installed by North Korea south of the MDL under the pretext of fortifying the border,” he said.

A Joint Chiefs source said North Korean troops observed the area from which the blast was heard at the time of the explosion, but South Korea detected no unusual movements.

“We confirmed the location of the mine explosion in the DMZ as being 10 meters south of the MDL, something constituting a violation of the Armistice Agreement,” Kwon said. “The device was identified as a North Korean wooden-box anti-personnel mine.”

“Considering the space between the discovered mine and the explosion crater as well as the distance between rows, we concluded that it wasn’t a displaced mine but a typical North Korean model that had been deliberately buried,” he added. “The UN Command also judged that the mine had been intentionally placed at least 12 months prior.”

The military announced that it would start mine-clearing operations if the North failed to voluntarily remove the minefields it laid south of the MDL.

“Even now, we strongly urge North Korea to sincerely apologize to our soldiers injured in this mine explosion and immediately remove the mines it planted in violation of the armistice agreement,” Kwon said.

Brigadier Gen. Kim Seong-yun, the head of intelligence analysis at the Joint Chiefs, noted that several locations south of the MDL were identified as where North Korean troops are believed to have laid mines; the width of the encroached sections varies by area, but the average incursion depth was around 20 meters south of the MDL.

A Joint Chiefs official said the military would begin removing all mines crossing the Military Demarcation Line that day.

An official at the Ministry of National Defense also announced plans to take phased measures, saying, “We will combine dialogue and pressure through various methods from policy and strategic standpoints as well as military.”

The ministry is reportedly mulling actions such as boosting surveillance and reconnaissance in the DMZ and holding military talks with North Korea to discuss the boundary line of the MDL.

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