By Joyce Lee
SEOUL, Oct 21 (Reuters) – North Korea has told its border troops to take “prompt and resolute action” if South Korean forces threaten their safety, state media said on Wednesday, raising the risk of a clash along the heavily armed frontier.
The report came a day after Seoul pledged to punish “resolutely” any further provocation by Pyongyang if North Korea acted on threats to strengthen its military posture along the border.
North Korean Army Marshal Pak Jong Chon inspected fortifications on the border with South Korea on Tuesday, accompanied by Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, KCNA reported.
Kim Yo Jong said new firepower units had “taken their firing positions” at the border, KCNA reported.
Tensions between North and South Korea have risen since Pyongyang began fortifying its border in April 2024. The two countries are separated by the Demilitarized Zone that was established when the Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953.
Seoul says Pyongyang has sent up to 7,000 workers to the border this year, with about 50 crossings of the Military Demarcation Line, which bisects the DMZ, to South Korea’s side of the border.
On Wednesday, North Korea rejected Seoul’s allegations, with Pak dismissing the claim as an “absurd assertion” designed to shift blame, KCNA reported.
The North Korean army knew where the border lay “better than any others” and was only doing what it should within its own territory, Pak said, urging soldiers to turn the border into an “impregnable fortress”.
South Korea said North Korean mines caused a border blast last month that seriously wounded two of its soldiers, and called on Pyongyang to suspend the fortification work.
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Tom Hogue, Stephen Coates and Kate Mayberry)
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