On 15 October 2024, North Korea destroyed parts of the Gyeongui Line on the west coast, and the Donghae Line, located on the east coast, which connected the country to South Korea. At 9:45 AM on 9 October, the North Korean government notified United States forces in South Korea that it would completely sever the road and railway connecting the North and South Korean borders. While North Korea was cutting off traffic on both sections, the Workers' Party of Korea accused the South Korean government of using drones to fly over Pyongyang and violating North Korea's sovereignty. North Korea then dispatched the Korean People's Army to destroy parts of the northern section of the Military Demarcation Line on 15 October. This action is considered to have worsened relations between North and South Korea and heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Background

On 14 June 2003, the two governments of Korea held a ceremony to connect the Donghae Line and the Gyeongui Line between South Korea and North Korea. The two lines were subsequently opened on 1 December 2004 and 11 December 2007, respectively. In June 2020, North Korea blew up the Inter-Korean Liaison Office, allegedly because it was dissatisfied with defectors using balloons to spread political leaflets. On 23 November 2023, the North Korean government announced that it would no longer be bound by the 19 September Military Agreement, signed at the September 2018 inter-Korean summit. The South Korean government also suspended the 19 September Military Agreement at a cabinet meeting held on 4 June 2024.

In a speech at the end of 2023, Kim Jong Un, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, said that "North and South Korea are no longer of the same ethnicity, and that unification—which the Republic of Korea pursues as a state policy of "absorption unification"—will never be achieved." He further characterized South Korea as "the unchanging main enemy" and stated that nuclear forces would be used to subjugate its entire territory. Subsequently, in January 2024, Kim Jong Un further stated that "it is time to regard South Korea as the most hostile country" and that "North Korea has no intention of avoiding war." In response to the incident of North Korea dropping balloons containing feces into South Korea in 2024, the government of President Yoon Suk Yeol restarted "psychological warfare" against North Korea in mid-2024. In April 2024, the South Korean Armed Forces accused North Korea of planting mines near the Donghae Line, Gyeongui Line railway and Arrowhead Hill in Gangwon Province. Afterwards, South Korea raised the danger of drifting mines with the United Nations Command and requested that relevant information be transmitted to North Korea, but North Korea refused to contact them.

In June 2024, the South Korean government claimed to have received information that the North Korean government intended to dismantle the Gyeongui Line and Donghae Line railway and road sections. On 9 October 2024, at 9:45 a.m., the General Staff Department of the Korean People's Army, based on the experience of previous deaths caused by poor communication between the two Koreas, notified the United States forces in South Korea that North Korea would "completely cut off" the highways and railways connecting the North and South Korean borders. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that it would never sit idly by and watch North Korea attempt to unilaterally change the status quo regarding the "North Korean People's Army General Staff cutting off the highways and railways connecting to South Korea to carry out fortification and reinforcement projects." It also stated that North Korea would bear all the consequences. South Korea's Ministry of Unification stated that cutting off the highways and railways connecting to South Korea and gradually realizing "fortification" was "an act against unification and nationalism" and strongly condemned it.

North Korean complaints towards South Korea On 11 October 2024, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Korea issued an important statement criticizing South Korea for sending drones into the airspace over Jung-gu, Pyongyang, on the nights of 3 October, 9 October and 19 October, dropping a large number of anti-North Korea political propaganda leaflets and engaging in military provocation. Kim Yo Jong, deputy department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, issued a statement saying that the South Korean government's claim that it had not yet figured out the situation, that "the military has not sent any drones to North Korea" and that "it needs to be confirmed whether it was done by civilian groups" was an attempt to shirk its responsibility, and that it would retaliate if South Korean drones were to reappear in Pyongyang. The Ministry of National Defense of North Korea responded to the position of the South Korean Ministry of National Defense, saying that it held an ambiguous attitude of neither denying nor admitting the situation, and was hesitant about whether civilian groups had the equipment to make drones fly over Pyongyang. Afterwards, Kim Yo Jong made another statement regarding South Korea sending drones to North Korea, saying that "the South Korean government is the culprit and the US government should bear the relevant responsibility". She then made a further statement responding to the South Korean Ministry of National Defense's statement that "the end of the regime" was a "major criminal act" that was determined to ignite the fuse of war.

South Korean government's response After learning of North Korea's statement, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun attended the National Assembly's audit of the military court and stated that the South Korean military had not infiltrated North Korea with drones. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also stated that they would confirm whether a civilian organization carried it out. Subsequently, on 13 October, the Ministry of National Defense sent a brief message to its reporters entitled "Position Regarding North Korea's Kim Yo Jong Statement," stating that South Korea issued a stern warning to North Korea that if North Korea infringes on the safety of South Korean citizens, that day would be the day the North Korean regime is destroyed. At a press conference on 14 October, Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Lee Sung-joon stated that he had observed North Korean troops setting up roadblocks on the section of road involved and was also paying attention to the movement of North Korean artillery guns near the northern boundary line of the Yellow Sea. He said, "If North Korea provokes, we can take the initiative and launch a strong counterattack."

Events

On the evening of 13 October, the North Korean Ministry of National Defense stated that the General Staff Department of the Korean People's Army had issued instructions to front-line troops to prepare to fire. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense stated that it had not yet received any alerts from the Jindo dogs or issued any instructions to strengthen the alert posture. The Joint Chiefs of Staff subsequently stated that it had received intelligence that the North Korean side might blow up the Gyeongui Line and Donghae Line railways. It further pointed out that the front-line troops announced by the North Korean side were eight artillery brigades with about 570 long-range guns deployed along the entire western to eastern armistice line, targeting the Seoul metropolitan area.

On 14 October, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un convened a meeting on defense and security, outlining the direction of the DPRK's current military activities and proposing major tasks in activating national defense forces and exercising the right of self-defense to safeguard national sovereignty and security interests. Kim Yo Jong subsequently issued another statement on 15 October, saying that "there is sufficient evidence that the drone flight was carried out by South Korea and that South Korea will pay a heavy price." On the same day, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff sent a message to the media confirming that the DPRK had blown up sections of the Gyeongui Line and the Donghae Line north of the Military Demarcation Line at noon on the same day. The South Korean military fired warning shots after the DPRK destroyed some sections of the road.

North Korean media remained silent on the relevant information afterward. Until 17 October, the Korean Central News Agency reported that the General Staff Department of the Korean People's Army, in accordance with Order No. 00122 of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea, took measures to completely cut off the sections of highways and railways connecting with South Korea in the eastern and western regions of the southern border. It quoted a spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense as saying that it completely sealed off a 60-meter section of highways and railways in the area of Ganhu-ri, Kosong County, Kangwon Province, and a 60-meter section of highways and railways in the area of Dongnei-ri, Panmun District, Kaesong City, by means of explosives. It stated that this action was "a constitutional requirement to define the Republic of Korea as a completely hostile country " and a necessary and legal measure based on the serious security environment of being on the verge of unpredictable war due to the serious political and military provocations of hostile forces. When Kim Jong Un inspected the 2nd Army of the Korean People's Army on 17 October, he said that destroying and cutting off the roads and railways connecting South Korean territory not only means physical closure, but also means "severing the bitter ties that have been intertwined with Seoul for centuries". He also warned that if South Korea violates North Korean sovereignty, it will "use force without any conditions and it will be a legitimate retaliatory action against an enemy country rather than a fellow countryman".

After the explosion, only the Joint Security Area and Arrowhead Hill remained as land routes connecting North and South Korea. However, Arrowhead Hill was of no practical significance because vehicles could not pass through it. After the explosion, the Korean People's Army also dispatched other vehicles to the site to demolish nearby roads. The explosion affected both highways and railway sections. The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff analyzed that the North Korean army used TNT explosives and only set up a fragile black barrier about 10 meters before the Military Demarcation Line. The impact of the explosion extended south of the Military Demarcation Line, violating the Korean Armistice Agreement. The Dong-A Ilbo pointed out that its reporters observed from the Goseong Unification Observatory in Gangwon Province on 23 Octoberthat the North Korean side mobilized more than 100 North Korean soldiers and heavy equipment such as trucks and excavators at the explosion site on the Donghae Line to set up structures and began to build a concrete barrier wall on the spot. On 4 November, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff pointed out that the South Korean military observed through surveillance equipment that North Korea had deployed 300 to 400 personnel and heavy equipment to dig anti-tank ditches every day up to 1 November. It speculated that North Korea believed that in the event of an emergency, North Korea could fill the ditches with earth and then directly invade southward. Furthermore, it pointed out that North Korea had also built low mounds behind the north side of each anti-tank ditches to plant trees. South Korea could also deploy armored bridge-laying vehicles or advanced tanks through flanking maneuvers.

Aftermath

Inter-Korean relations