Seoul seeks apology from North Korea over border mine blast

Seoul is seeking an apology for last month’s border blast even as Pyongyang fortifies a line it now treats as a permanent frontier

North Korea’s laying of landmines along its heavily fortified border with the South has laid bare how misaligned the two nations have become over their de facto land boundary, after three South Korean soldiers were wounded in an explosion last month.

Seoul blames Pyongyang for the blast near the military demarcation line (MDL) on September 21, in which one soldier lost a foot. On Tuesday, its Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was preparing a response to force an apology for the blast, without going into specifics, further urging the North to hold talks on the poorly signposted MDL.

Military personnel from both sides are technically forbidden from crossing the MDL under their 1953 armistice agreement. As the precise centre line of the 4km (2.5-mile) wide demilitarised zone (DMZ) that bisects the Korean peninsula, it serves as the effective land border between North and South Korea.

But the 250km (155-mile) long line is sparsely marked, with few of the more than 1,200 original markers that were installed over seven decades ago still in place.

A joint investigation by South Korea and the US-led United Nations Command concluded that at least four mines at the site of last month’s blast, 10 metres (32 feet) south of the MDL, were deliberately planted by the North.