Recent satellite images show that North Korea appears to be building sections of a wall in several locations near its border with South Korea.
Knewz.com has learned that North Korea has also cleared a long stretch of land on its side of the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ.
The satellite images show three sections of the supposed wall erected by the North around 0.6 miles from the eastern stretch of the border with South Korea.
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Dr. Uk Yang, a military and defense expert at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies told the outlet, “My personal assessment is that this is the first time they’ve ever built a barrier in the sense of separating places from each other.”
“Back in the 1990s, North Korea had set up the anti-tank walls to deter the advance of tanks in case war broke out. But recently, North Korea has been setting up walls 2-3m [around 10 feet] high, and they don’t look like the anti-tank walls.”
“The shape of the walls suggests that they are not just obstacles [for tanks], but are intended to divide an area,” Dr. Yang added.
North Korea has also cleared a stretch of land in the shape of a long access road, a feature that was not present in satellite images captured in November 2023, in the area of the DMZ controlled by the North.
BBC Verify noted that there have been other reports of land clearance in the region as well.
Experts have deemed the recent behavior by the North “unusual,” per the outlet, although Professor Kil Joo Ban of the Ilmin International Relations Institute, Korea University, commented that land clearance could have both military and non-military “aspects.”
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Another expert commented that the military implications of the latest development are “speculative.”
“At this point, we can only speculate that North Korea is looking to strengthen its military presence and fortifications along the border,” Shreyas Reddy, a correspondent at the specialist site NK News, told BBC Verify.
However, another expert noted that the construction is “unusual” nonetheless.
“It is unusual to build structures in the DMZ and may be a violation of the armistice without prior consultation,” said Professor Victor Cha, the senior vice president for Asia and Korea at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, via BBC Verify.
The South Korean military has also taken note of the “unexplained construction activities” in the DMZ, according to a statement from a military source cited by the Yonhap News Agency.
“Recently, the North Korean military has been erecting walls, digging the ground, and constructing roads in some areas between the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) and the Northern Limit Line in the DMZ,” the source told the outlet.
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The outlet further wrote that around 20 North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the “inter-Korean land border” earlier this week. They returned after the South Korean military fired warning shots.
It is worth noting that the construction of the wall along the border and the supposed “road” in the DMZ came amidst Kim Jong-un‘s increasingly aggressive anti-South Korea rhetoric.
In January 2024, North Korea demolished the Arch of Reunification, a monument in Pyongyang that symbolized the nation’s unification with South Korea.
“The arch, formally known as the Monument to the Three Charters for National Reunification, stood 30 meters tall and was symbolic of the three charters, which were self-reliance, peace, and national cooperation,” Reuters wrote about the monument, citing government records from South Korea.
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Simultaneously, the North Korean supreme leader also ordered an amendment to the constitution of North Korea to deem the South the “principal enemy” of the nation.
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