North Korea denies planting mines that injured 3 South Korean soldiers, accuses Seoul of conspiracy

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday rejected South Korean findings that North Korea likely planted the land mines that injured three South Korean soldiers last week. She threatened to retaliate if the South fires at North Korean troops conducting border fortification work.

Three South Korean military officers were injured in two consecutive explosions Sept. 21 near the military demarcation line in the western section of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a heavily fortified border buffer zone between the Koreas.

The statement by Kim Yo Jong came after South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff on Monday announced a preliminary assessment that the blasts were caused by North Korean mines following a joint inspection of the site with the U.S.-led United Nations Command.

South Korean Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul told lawmakers Tuesday that North Korea’s placement of the mines likely violated the armistice agreement that ended fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War, and that the South would consider unspecified “corresponding measures” if a finalized investigation confirms the North was responsible.

Kim Yo Jong, a top foreign policy official for her brother and possibly the second-most powerful figure in Pyongyang, called the South Korean assessment a “conspiratorial farce” and accused Seoul of making groundless claims to create a pretext for military provocation against the North.

North Korea in recent years has added mines, anti-tank barriers and other front-line fortifications as relations between the Koreas have sharply deteriorated, raising concerns in the South about the growing presence of North Korean soldiers near the DMZ.

Kim described North Korea’s efforts as a rightful exercise of its sovereignty to strengthen the border and accused the South of escalating tensions by broadcasting warnings and firing warning shots at North Korean troops involved in front-line fortification work, insisting that “our soldiers have never crossed the border.”

“When a single bullet is hit on our land, they must be prepared for a lot,” she said. “If the (South Korean) military gangsters fire at our soldiers carrying on the permanent project for the southern border, not warning shots, our border units will take immediate and merciless retaliatory action."

The recent explosions, which took place about 10 meters (yards) south of the military demarcation line, came during an operation to establish a patrol route through a densely vegetated area rarely visited for decades. The route was intended to allow future inspections with the U.N. Command after South Korea since last year detected “terrain changes” that may have resulted from North Korean minelaying.

Kwon Dae-won, vice chairman of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there was a “very high possibility” that North Korean mines caused last week’s explosions, noting that there was no record of South Korean or allied forces laying mines in the area. Blast marks, forensic analysis of explosive substances and what appeared to be a third North Korean mine at the scene also pointed to the North, he said. Kang said South Korean and U.N. investigators found a possible fourth mine during a follow-up inspection Tuesday.

The DMZ, which is 248 kilometers (155 miles) long and 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) wide, is one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders. An estimated 2 million mines are buried in and around the zone, which is also guarded by barbed-wire fences, tank traps and combat troops on both sides. The zone is a legacy of the Korean War , which ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

The latest explosions came more than a decade after South Korea blamed the North for land mine explosions that maimed two South Korean soldiers and sharply raised tensions between the countries in August 2015.

The Koreas then traded threats, staged weapons demonstrations and resumed border propaganda broadcasts, before days of marathon talks eventually pulled them back from the brink . North Korea issued a vague expression of regret over the soldiers’ injuries but never clearly accepted responsibility.

Last week’s explosions came as South Korea’s liberal government sought to help revive diplomacy between Pyongyang and Washington as part of broader efforts to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Since early 2024, North Korea has taken an increasingly hard-line stance toward South Korea, declaring its neighbor a permanent enemy and abandoning the concept of shared statehood in favor of a hostile “two-state” system. The North has so far rejected U.S. calls to revive diplomacy between the countries that collapsed in 2019, insisting that Washington must first drop its demand for the North’s denuclearization as a precondition for talks.