North Korea Denies Laying DMZ Mines, Kim Yo Jong Warns of Retaliation

North Korea on Wednesday rejected South Korea's preliminary finding that North Korean land mines caused explosions that injured three South Korean military officers near the Demilitarized Zone last week, with Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of leader Kim Jong Un, calling the assessment a "conspiratorial farce" and warning of retaliation.

The blasts occurred on Sept. 21 in two consecutive explosions about 10 meters south of the military demarcation line, in the western section of the DMZ. The officers were hurt during an operation to open a patrol route through densely vegetated terrain that had been rarely visited for decades. The route was meant to allow future inspections with the U.S.-led United Nations Command after South Korea detected "terrain changes" since last year that may have resulted from North Korean minelaying.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff announced the preliminary assessment on Monday, following a joint inspection of the site with the U.N. Command. Vice Chairman Kwon Dae-won said there was a "very high possibility" that North Korean mines were responsible, noting 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 pointed to the North, he said. Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul told lawmakers Tuesday that a possible fourth mine was found during a follow-up inspection, and that the North's placement of mines likely violated the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. He said the South would consider unspecified "corresponding measures" if a finalized investigation confirms North Korean responsibility.

Kim Yo Jong, a top foreign policy official and possibly the second-most powerful figure in Pyongyang, accused Seoul of making groundless claims to create a pretext for military provocation. She described North Korea's border fortification work as a rightful exercise of sovereignty and accused the South of escalating tensions by broadcasting warnings and firing warning shots at North Korean troops, 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."

North Korea has in recent years 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. Since early 2024, Pyongyang has taken an increasingly hard-line stance, declaring South Korea 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 that collapsed in 2019, insisting Washington must first drop its demand for denuclearization as a precondition for talks.

The DMZ, 248 kilometers long and 4 kilometers 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 buffer 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 blasts that maimed two South Korean soldiers in August 2015, sharply raising tensions. The Koreas then traded threats, staged weapons demonstrations and resumed border propaganda broadcasts before days of marathon talks 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 occurred 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.