Seoul says the mines came from the North
South Korea's Defence Ministry said this week it is weighing measures to push North Korea into apologising for a landmine blast inside the Demilitarized Zone that wounded three South Korean soldiers last month. A joint investigation by South Korean and United Nations Command officials concluded that the two mines were planted by North Korean forces about a year ago, on the southern side of the Military Demarcation Line.
Lieutenant General Kwon Dae-won, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called on Pyongyang to offer a sincere apology to the injured soldiers and to immediately remove any other mines it planted in violation of the armistice agreement. Defence Ministry spokesperson Kang said all responsibility lies with North Korea and that the armed forces would respond decisively to any action threatening national security.
Pyongyang rejects the accusation
North Korea rejected the finding. In a statement carried by the state-run KCNA news agency, the Foreign Ministry described the dispute as a sinister move to brand its fortification of the southern border as a military invasion, and called the incident a poor trick by Seoul to shift blame for its own accident.
The row has stalled a fragile push for dialogue. Unification Minister Chung Dong-young proposed on October 2 that both sides jointly resurvey the Military Demarcation Line. He noted that only about 200 of the original 1,292 boundary markers remain intact, and that Seoul and the UN Command disagree on roughly 60 percent of border coordinates.
What happens next
Seoul says it is working with the defence ministry and other agencies on next steps, and is considering diplomatic channels, including raising the matter at the United Nations. Officials remember 2015, when wooden box mines planted by the North injured two South Korean soldiers. Seoul responded then with loudspeaker broadcasts and a letter to the Security Council.
Analysts say the two Koreas are caught between deterrence and dialogue. Pyongyang has dismissed repeated outreach, while Seoul's government wants to lower tension without appearing weak. For border units and the soldiers' families, the practical questions are whether the North will clear any remaining mines, and whether the two sides can still talk about a boundary line that has drifted for decades.