Defense chief says DMZ blast 'clear' violation of armistice agreement

SEOUL, September 29 - South Korea's Defence Minister Kang Shin-chul stated on Tuesday that preliminary investigations into a landmine explosion inside the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) implicated North Korea, asserting the incident breached the armistice agreement. The September 21 blast injured three South Korean soldiers, one of whom suffered a foot injury, within the DMZ, the heavily mined buffer zone separating the two nations.

The minister's remarks followed the defence ministry's announcement the previous day that North Korean mines were "highly suspected" of causing the two explosions last week. "This is a clear violation of the armistice agreement, and since North Korea bears responsibility, we will take corresponding measures," Kang declared during a parliamentary hearing.

Although the DMZ is officially a demilitarized zone, its northern and southern borders are among the most heavily fortified frontiers in the world, still littered with landmines. At the Tuesday hearing, Yang Jin-hyeok of the Joint Chiefs of Staff informed MPs of an unexploded North Korean plastic anti-personnel mine discovered during an earlier site investigation.

Minister Kang told MPs that the military has "a range of necessary measures at our disposal, and we will implement them in stages," without divulging specifics. Seoul and Pyongyang remain technically at war since the Korean conflict concluded with a truce, not a peace treaty.