North Korea placed mines that maimed soldiers at DMZ, South says

One of the soldiers lost both legs, while the other lost one leg.

South Korea’s presidential Blue House demanded an apology Tuesday from North Korea as military tensions surged after two border patrol soldiers were maimed by landmine blasts blamed on Pyongyang.

Briefing parliament on Wednesday, Han Min-Koo, South Korea’s defence minister, said the loudspeakers were now operating at four out of a possible 11 sites.

It applied: “As before said many times, our soldiers will be sure to make North Korea agree to pay the similarly harsh sentence for their own provocations”.

The South Korean Defense Ministry declined to specify when exactly the propaganda broadcasts would resume.

Tensions are already running high between North and South Korea ahead of the start of major military exercises between the US and South Korea.

Seoul said the broadcasts would only be “part” of the response and officials said they would not be drawn on how long the loudspeaker campaign might continue for.

The incident comes as a triumphant Kim Jong-Un was pictured wearing sunglasses and smiling as he greeted the North Korean Women’s team in Pyongyang after they won the EAFF East Asian Cup.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has condemned the mine explosions, which it called a violation of the armistice.

According to Seoul, fragments from the explosions matched North Korea’s “wooden box” landmines.

The Seoul-Pyongyang ties have been strained since 2010, when the South imposed sanctions banning economic and cultural exchanges with the North following the North’s torpedoing of a South Korean warship and its shelling of a border island.

About 2,000 South Korean and U.S. troops from 47 military units will join the drills, which will feature South Korea’s newly deployed high-tech weaponry like K-2 tanks, K-21 armored vehicles, Surion choppers and FA-50 Fighting Eagle combat jets, as well as a multi-launch rocket system.

North Korea, which has denied previous attacks, may well be expected to pour scorn on the UNC investigation carried out by officials from the United States, South Korea, New Zealand and Colombia.

South Korea’s retaliatory measures will remain “secret” until they are carried out, he said.

Goo accused North Korea of planting the mines.

The announcement North Koreans trespassed into an off-limits zone sent shock waves across Seoul – the agents would have come quite close to a South Korean guard post undetected, The New York Times reported. South Korean authorities claimed that the mines were laid around a door on the South Korean side of the border that opened onto the DMZ.