North and South Korea began removing mines at two sites inside their heavily fortified border on October 1, 2018, as part of their deals to ease decades-long military tensions. File
| Photo Credit: AP

North Korean landmines could be swept into South Korea by flooding, South Korea’s military warned on July 17, after the North has recently placed tens of thousands of additional deadly explosives along the rivals’ heavily fortified border.

North Korea’s minelaying is part of construction at the border that’s been going on since April, which also includes adding anti-tank barriers and reinforcing roads. South Korea officials believe North Korea aims to boost its frontline security posture and prevent its soldiers and citizens from defecting to South Korea.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff told local reporters that flooding caused by summer rainfall could wash the mines over the border, adding that North Korea might also deliberately float mines downriver as a provocation.

The contents of the briefing were shared with AP.

Concerns about possible North Korean provocation have deepened after Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, threatened new countermeasures Tuesday against South Korean civilian activists’ efforts to drop leaflets over the north by balloon. North Korea has earlier responded by flying trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea, which have not caused major damage.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that North Korea’s military has suffered “many casualties” from about 10 mine explosions and heat exposure during the intense border works.

An estimated 2 million mines are believed to be strewn in and around Koreas’ 248 kilometre (154 miles)- long and 4 kilometres (2.5 miles)-wide land border. Experts say both Koreas have poorly managed their mines and don’t know exactly how many they have planted or where they are.

It’s not unusual for wooden North Korean mine boxes to wash downriver in summer, causing deadly incidents in South Korea. A 2015 mine explosion blamed on North Korea maimed two South Korean soldiers and pushed the rivals to the brink of an armed conflict.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it’s it’s also looking at other possible provocations by North Korea, such as firing across the border at incoming South Korean balloons. It said the South Korean military is strengthening its readiness to repel any potential aggression by North Korea.

North Korea is extremely sensitive to South Korean activists’ efforts to scatter anti-Pyongyang leaflets, seeing them as a threat its political system and a challenge to its ban on access to foreign news for most of its 26 million people, experts say.

In 2020, North Korea destroyed an unoccupied South Korean-built liaison office on its territory in a furious response to South Korean civilian leafleting campaigns. In 2014, North Korea fired at balloons flying toward its territory and South Korea returned fire, though there were no casualties.

Animosities between the rival Koreas have been running high in recent years, with North Korea extending provocative weapons tests and South Korea expanding its military drills with the United States in a tit-for-tat cycle.

North Korea says it was compelled to pursue nuclear weapons to cope with U.S. military threats, though the U.S. and South Korea have steadfastly said they have no intentions of invading the North.

Former South Korean president Moon Jae-in’s recently published memoir, titled From the Periphery to the Centre is displayed at a bookstore in Seoul on May 21, 2024. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered to give up his nuclear arsenal if America guaranteed his regime would survive, former South Korean president Moon Jae-in said in a recently released memoir.
| Photo Credit: AFP

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered to give up his nuclear arsenal if America guaranteed his regime would survive, former South Korean president Moon Jae-in said in a recently released memoir.

Mr. Moon, who led South Korea for five years from 2017, was instrumental in brokering two high-profile summit meetings between Mr. Kim and then-United States president Donald Trump, aimed at securing Pyongyang’s denuclearisation in return for sanctions relief.

But after the second summit collapsed in 2019, diplomatic outreach was abandoned, with relations between the two Koreas now at one of their worst points in years, as Mr. Kim doubles down on weapons production and draws closer to ally Moscow.

In the memoir released on May 17, titled From the Periphery to the Centre, former president Mr. Moon outlined in great detail his interactions with the North Korean leader.

“Kim said he would forsake nuclear weapons if there was a guarantee of regime survival,” Mr. Moon said in the book, adding that he felt the young North Korean leader was “very honest”.

According to Mr. Moon, Mr. Kim’s reasoning was: “I have a daughter and I do not wish her generation to live with nuclear weapons… Why would we continue to live in difficulty, under sanctions, with nuclear weapons if our security can be guaranteed?”

But the North Korean leader was “well aware of mistrust from the international community and the (belief from the) U.S. that the North had been lying” about its commitments to denuclearisation, Mr. Moon said.

Mr. Kim specifically asked him how the North could manage to “make Washington believe in our sincerity” to disarm.

No diplomacy

In five years since the Hanoi summit, Pyongyang has declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear weapons power, accelerated weapons development, branded Seoul its “principal enemy” and threatened war over “even 0.001 mm” of territorial infringement.

It has also moved closer to Moscow, purportedly supplying it with arms in exchange for space technologies, something which would violate rafts of United Nations sanctions on both countries.

Despite how things have played out, Mr. Moon said in his memoir that he still believed Mr. Kim was sincere in his plans to denuclearise, but that it was strongly contingent on “corresponding measures” from the U.S.

Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump failed to strike a deal because Washington demanded complete denuclearisation before it would consider providing sanctions relief, Mr. Moon wrote.

“In retrospect, I regret that (South Korea) did not mediate more effectively by listening to the North’s demands and relaying them to Washington if deemed reasonable,” he said.

“Though there are negative views about Trump, he was a very good fit for me as a counterpart in alliance diplomacy,” he said.

“While there are assessments that he is rude and harsh, I liked him for his honesty. A person who has a smiling face but acts differently and thus can’t be read is more difficult to deal with,” he added.

Mr. Trump was both apologetic and regretful that the Hanoi summit ended without a deal, Mr. Moon wrote.

Mr. Trump was “willing to accept (the North Koreans’ terms) but then-Security Advisor John Bolton fervently opposed it,” Mr. Moon wrote.

When Mr. Trump asked then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a second opinion, he agreed with Mr. Bolton, leaving Mr. Trump no option but to walk away, Mr. Moon wrote.

It is impossible to take Mr. Kim’s words at face value now, Hong Min a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, told AFP.

What was clear “is that Mr. Kim tried to change the status quo by expressing his intention to denuclearise,” he told AFP.

The only way to know if Mr. Kim was serious, would have been to strike a deal in Hanoi and “gauge how far the North would go towards denuclearisation,” he added.

Mr. Moon was succeeded by conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, who has taken a significantly more hawkish stance on North Korea.

Explained | The change of guard in South Korea

Mr. Yoon has not commented on the memoir but his minister for unification Kim Yung-ho said on Monday that taking Mr. Kim’s words at face value could have lead to a security-related “miscalculation”.

“While ignoring North Korea’s (nuclear) capability, if we only focus on the North’s intentions, this could result in a miscalculation of the security situation,” he said, according to the Yonhap news agency.