South Korean Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul said Tuesday that the North Korean mine believed to have caused last week’s explosions in the Demilitarized Zone had been planted rather than displaced from elsewhere, linking it to Pyongyang’s efforts to fortify the inter-Korean border.
“It does not appear to have been displaced from elsewhere,” Kang said during a plenary meeting of the National Assembly’s National Defense Committee in Seoul.
Kang, however, cautioned against concluding that the mine had been planted recently.
Soil and roots found over one of the mines suggested that it had remained underground for some time and could even predate North Korean mine-laying activity detected in the area in September 2025, he explained.
In recent years, North Korea has stepped up fortification work near the Military Demarcation Line, laying mines and installing fences and anti-tank barriers. Pyongyang announced in October 2024 that it would sever inter-Korean roads and railways and further fortify areas along the border.
South Korea has since detected North Korean construction and mine-laying activity close to the MDL. Seoul has raised concerns that some of those activities could violate the 1953 Armistice Agreement, which halted the 1950-53 Korean War, while the United Nations Command has taken a more cautious view on whether border fortification itself constitutes a violation.
