S. Korea Vows Retaliation Against N. Korea For DMZ Attack

(CNN) – The South Korean military has warned North Korea of a “harsh” response to landmine blasts that seriously wounded two South Korean soldiers last week in the demilitarized zone.

The Unification Ministry has said that the North’s move is feared to deepen differences between the two Koreas and to run counter to efforts to promote inter-Korean cooperation and prepare for a peaceful unification.

In 2010, South Korea restarted radio broadcasts and restored 11 loudspeakers as part of punitive measures taken after a warship sinking blamed on North Korea that killed 46 South Korean sailors earlier that year.

The U.S.-led United Nations Command that monitors the ceasefire between the North and South supports South Korea’s finding. One soldier had to have part of his legs amputated, while the other had to have his foot removed.

Choe had worked on inter-Korean affairs in 2000s, leading the North’s delegation in joint economic cooperation committees with South Korea between 2003 and 2005.

The document stipulates the North’s mine-planting as a “clear military provocation in which it attempted to cause South Korean military casualties” which constitutes a direct violation of the multinational armistice and inter-Korean nonaggression pacts.

Many Koreans, especially the elderly, on both sides of the border still hold a deep resentment against Japan over its colonial occupation.

“We sternly urge North Korea to apologise for this provocation and punish those responsible”, Blue House spokesman Min Kyung-Wook told reporters. State media has released imagery of North Korean’s weeping and mourning at the main square in Pyongyang as citizens participate in an the state-wide 11-day mourning period culminating in a national memorial service December 28-29. Whether this attack will change the tenor of those exercises, or North Korea tries to sabotage them, remains to be seen.

South Korea has turned to a psychological weapon of its own, saying it will resume broadcasting propaganda to North Korean territory.

Investigators believe the mines were planted between July 22-when the gate was last used-and the day of the attack, the first of its kind in 48 years, South Korean officials say.

The escalation in tensions between the countries comes a week ahead of US-South Korea joint military exercises, which the North promised on Saturday to meet with “tough military counter-action”.

Military and spy authorities are raking in intelligence to find out who in North Korea may have controlled the latest attack, with little signs detected as of Wednesday. As a result, the two countries technically remain at war.