Kim Yo-jong, director of the general affairs department of North Korea's Workers' Party, called a land mine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone a "clear self-staged farce" and warned that "if even a single bullet lands on our soil, they will have to be prepared for a great deal."
According to the Korean Central News Agency on the 30th, Kim made the remarks a day earlier in a statement titled "Those Behind the Provocation Must Be Prepared to Pay the Price for Their Self-Staged Clown Show." Kim claimed the incident was "a clear self-staged farce that, in its timing and method, closely resembles the 'wooden box mine incident' that stirred the world more than a decade ago." In the 2015 wooden box mine incident, a South Korean noncommissioned officer was severely wounded when a mine — believed to have been planted by North Korean soldiers who crossed south of the Military Demarcation Line — exploded.
Kim said that "what cannot be overlooked is that the South Korean armed gangsters have once again fabricated groundless findings and are openly talking about 'implementing appropriate and corresponding measures' to manufacture a 'pretext to justify' their political and military provocations against us." She added: "Can we just sit and watch the shabby spectacle of them stepping on a mine of unknown origin in a place they know nothing about, blindly suspecting someone and babbling that it is a clear violation of the Armistice Agreement?"
She also said fortification work along the border area was "purely an exercise of sovereignty with no connection whatsoever to any military purpose," calling South Korea's position "a deliberate and calculated groundless claim aimed at shifting the blame for worsening tensions onto us." She said, "Our soldiers have never once crossed the border line." Instead, she threatened that "if even a single bullet lands on our soil, they will have to be prepared for a great deal," adding that "if the South Korean military gangsters fire live rounds rather than warning shots at our soldiers, our border units will strike back immediately and mercilessly."
She went on to warn that "the dramatic climax of Seoul's self-staged clown show will be no fun at all," and that "responsibility for all consequences will rest entirely with those who planned the provocation." Kim's statement was carried only by the Korean Central News Agency, an outlet aimed at overseas audiences.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said on the 21st, in interim findings, that the explosion in the DMZ was highly likely to have been caused by a North Korean land mine.
