“In a meeting in late June with the United Nations Command, South Korea’s Defense Ministry expressed concern about activity by North Korean engineers at a number of locations along the length of the 238-kilometer-long (148 miles) Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has divided the Korean Peninsula since an armistice brought the 1950-53 Korean War to an uneasy conclusion.”
“North Korean engineering troops have erected new fences, constructed anti-tank berms and ditches, dug trenches, built new military roads for greater access, cleared land and laid new minefields.”
“The work has been carried out on the North’s side of the military demarcation line (MDL), but it has crept ever closer to that marker, which is the exact half-way point in the 4-kilometer-wide DMZ.”
“In some areas, the South Korean military said, the work has been carried out less than 100 meters (around 330 feet) from the MDL, which Seoul says is a breach of the armistice.”
“Adding additional military capabilities so close to the half-way point effectively neutralizes the DMZ’s function as a buffer zone, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesperson Chung Binna said during a press conference on June 25.”
“Dan Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University, believes Pyongyang has learned from China’s incremental absorption of territory at the extreme fringes of its own borders — such as the atolls of the South China Sea — and the lack of a coordinated international pushback against the landgrabs.”
https://www.dw.com/en/south-korea-airs-concerns-over-north-korean-border-activity/a-77938229