hankyoreh

Gyeonggi Province

North Korea finally responded on Aug. 13 to the South Korean military’s announcement blaming it for a mine blast early this month at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), calling the accusation a “slanderous concoction.”

It was Pyongyang’s first response since the explosion occurred on Aug. 4, coming ten days after the incident itself and four days after the official announcement by the South Korean military.

The South Korean military immediately responded by demanding that the North “stop ducking its responsibility.”

“The claim that we planted no fewer than three mines to defend ourselves in front of the puppets’ [South Korea’s] military police guard post 400 meters south of the Military Demarcation Line is absurd,” said the statement, released on Aug. 13 by the political bureau of North Korea’s National Defense Commission.

“It appears that the puppets stored up some of our military’s mines that it had collected and used them to concoct a slander,” the statement continued.

“Any reckless provocations will bring on just retribution,” it warned.

North Korea also reportedly sent a message to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff in the name of the Western Front Command of its People’s Army warning that “punitive measures such as resuming psychological warfare broadcasts in the North” constituted “acts of military provocation.”

“If you have the courage to oppose, you should come out on the battlefield and let the matter be decided militarily,” the Joint Chiefs quoted the message as saying.

The Joint Chiefs delivered a response to the People’s Army General Staff Department warning of a “harsh price.”

“We will respond unmercifully to any additional provocations,” it read.

With Pyongyang denying involvement in the mine blast, the two sides are expected to face off over the issue going ahead. But some analysts said the statement - which offers a relatively composed explanation by North Korean standards rather than an intense backlash - suggests the North will not be taking any offensive military action for now.

“Instead of warning about intensive actions to come, the statement merely addresses the accusations,” noted University of North Korean Studies professor Yang Moo-jin.

“It comes across as a ‘reconnaissance engagement’, sending the message that [Pyongyang] is going to watch and wait for now,” Yang said.

But Pyongyang also hinted at a possible military response to the launching of balloons carrying propaganda leaflets by South Korean conservative groups, warning that they could “face a sea of fire.”

In a separate statement on Aug. 13, a group calling itself the “allied front-line units” said the “resumption of large-scale psychological warfare such as leaflet launches by the Park Geun-hye gang is clear evidence that inter-Korean relations have entered what amounts to a state of war.”

“There are limits to the patience of our front-line troops,” it warned.

The attitude on the leaflets stands in sharp contrast to the relative silence on the issue of front-line propaganda broadcasts, which were resumed by the South Korean military after the mine blast. Observers took the difference as a sign that Pyongyang plans to deal separately with actions by the military and private groups.

The North Korean refugees’ group Fighters for Free North Korea held a press conference near Imjingak in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, at 11 am on Aug. 13 to announce its launch plans.

“Between 10 and 10:30 am, we will be attaching 200,000 leaflets denouncing the mine blast to ten large balloons and sending them toward North Korea,” it said.

By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer in Paju and Park Kyung-man, north Gyeonggi correspondent

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