North Korean soldiers briefly cross the border with the South

The South Korean General Staff (JCS) reported on Tuesday June 11 a new episode of tension with Pyongyang. “North Korean soldiers working inside the DMZ on the central front briefly crossed the military demarcation line”the JCS said in a statement, referring to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) which has separated the two enemy states since 1953.

“After our army broadcast warning messages and fired warning shots, they withdrew towards the North”he continued. “Apart from the immediate retreat of North Korean soldiers after our warning shots, no unusual movements were observed”added the JCS.

The North and South Korean sides of the 4 km wide DMZ are heavily fortified but the demarcation line itself, located in the middle of the zone, is marked only by simple signs. Clashes between soldiers from the two camps who patrol there break out from time to time.

According to the JCS spokesperson, it was likely an accidental incursion. “The situation that day was that the DMZ was overgrown and the marking of the military demarcation line was not clearly visible”he explained to the press.

North Korean soldiers “were moving through the bushes, and we were watching them before they even approached the boundary line”he continued. “We believe they had no intention of invading, as they immediately retreated north after the warning messages and shots”.

A balloon war

Sunday’s incident came amid some of the most tense relations between the North and South in years. The two countries remain technically at war, the conflict which opposed them from 1950 to 1953 having ended in an armistice and not a peace treaty.

In recent weeks, Pyongyang has sent hundreds of balloons weighted with trash such as cigarette butts, toilet paper and even animal excrement to South Korea. The North Korean regime intends to respond to the sending to the North by defector associations, also by balloon, of leaflets hostile to leader Kim Jong-un and his family, American bank notes and USB keys containing k-pop and South Korean series.

Seoul cannot legally prevent these shipments. In 2020, the South Korean Parliament passed a law banning sending propaganda leaflets to the North. But the Constitutional Court invalidated the text last year, ruling that it violated freedom of expression.

In early June, the South Korean government completely suspended a 2018 military deal to reduce tensions and resumed broadcasting propaganda over loudspeakers along the border, in retaliation for the garbage balloons. North Korea – which had already thrown the 2018 agreement into oblivion last year – warned Seoul against “a new crisis”.

The North installs loudspeakers

According to the South Korean army, the North is also installing loudspeakers on its side of the border, suggesting intense duels of screaming propaganda. These sound duels had been frequent since the 1960s, but were suspended in 2018 due to a warming of relations.

The decision to abandon the 2018 agreement and reconnect the speakers could have serious consequences, if precedent is to be believed.

Complaining about the sending of propaganda leaflets against its regime from the South, North Korea in 2020 cut all official military and political communication links with its neighbor, and demolished with explosives an inter-Korean liaison office located on his side of the border. The North has also threatened in the past to fire cannons on South Korean loudspeakers if they are not turned off.

Abandoning the 2018 deal also means the South Korean military can resume live ammunition exercises near the border. This agreement was the result of an inter-Korean rapprochement promoted by the South Korean president at the time, Moon Jae-in, who had met Kim Jong-un several times.