North and South Korea trade accusations over landmines that injured three soldiers

Is North Korea pushing the limits of the DMZ?

Pyongyang and Seoul are trading increasingly hostile accusations across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the peninsula, 10 days after three South Korean soldiers were injured by a land mine on the South's side of the border.

The latest tensions may reflect a broader North Korean effort to test South Korea 's resolve while extending its control to the outer limits of its territory, including an area that has effectively been a no-man's land for more than 70 years, according to a professor of foreign policy at South Korea's Kyung Hee University.

"The North revised its constitution in March this year and officially stated that they intend to define the absolute geographical limits of the nation, and that includes within the DMZ," said Choo Jae-woo.

"They want to maximize their territory and it is my sense that they would like to push the Military Demarcation Line [MDL] — the half-way point in the DMZ — further south," he told DW.

"I see the placing of landmines on the South's side of the line as a purely political act by the North, an attempt to threaten and intimidate the South."

The three men were part of an 18-strong patrol clearing a new route through the DMZ as part of an investigation into the activities of North Korean troops in the western sector of the zone. The four-kilometer-wide strip of land has divided the peninsula since the Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953.

本文の著作権はDeutsche Welleにあります。