[Anchor]

South Korea's military and the United Nations Command have assessed that North Korean troops crossed the Military Demarcation Line, but North Korea claims otherwise. Because the South and the North apply different standards for the boundary, there are several locations within the Demilitarized Zone where the demarcation line remains unclear. Although our side proposed military talks to discuss the matter, North Korea has refused to respond.

Reporter Choi Jae-yeong has more.

[Reporter]

The site of the landmine explosion, as determined by the South Korean military and the United Nations Command, is located about 10 meters south of the Military Demarcation Line.

However, North Korea claims that it has "never once crossed the border."

This appears to capitalize on the fact that the Military Demarcation Line is not clearly delineated by physical barriers such as barbed wire fences.

This is a map attached to the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement.

The Military Demarcation Line, along with the Southern Limit Line and the Northern Limit Line, are marked as distinct lines.

Following the signing of the agreement, the UNC and the North Korean military erected 1,292 marker signs across 240 kilometers to physically mark the Military Demarcation Line on the ground.

The markers, measuring 76 centimeters wide by 50 centimeters high, were installed at intervals of less than 500 meters.

However, in 1973, a South Korean soldier performing maintenance on the markers was shot and killed by North Korean gunfire, bringing maintenance work to a halt.

Later in 2014, when the UNC surveyed the condition of the markers, the secretary of the UNC Military Armistice Commission noted in a contributed article that "less than 15% remained visually identifiable."

The South Korean military also estimates a similar figure, assessing that only around 200 markers remain.

With so few markers—which serve as the "standard" for the Military Demarcation Line—left intact, discrepancies have arisen because the South Korean military, the North Korean military, and the UNC each use different methods to connect the markers and reconstruct the boundary on their maps.

Even between the South Korean military and UN forces, the location of the demarcation line differs along as much as 60% of the sections.

[Chun In-bum / Former Commander, ROK Army Special Warfare Command: (The DMZ) has rugged terrain with a mix of valleys and mountain peaks, and because there are four distinct seasons, it is extremely difficult to discern the terrain.]

In particular, as the demarcation line issue has resurfaced with North Korea's "border fortification work" underway since 2024, our military proposed military talks to the North last year to discuss establishing reference lines for the boundary.

However, North Korea has refused to engage, while crossing the Military Demarcation Line dozens of times this year alone, raising serious concerns that clashes could break out at any time.

(Video by Lee Byung-joo and Kang Dong-cheol | Video Editing by Won Hyeong-hee | Graphics by Seo Seung-hyun and Choi Jae-yeong)