North Korea builds 10-kilometer anti-tank walls near DMZ

North Korea has built antitank barriers totaling about 10 kilometers across four sections of the Demilitarized Zone, according to South Korean lawmakers, marking the first public confirmation of their locations and total length.

Rep. Yoo Yong-won of the People Power Party, citing Joint Chiefs of Staff data, said Monday that the barriers run about 2 kilometers north of the Military Demarcation Line at four sites, each roughly 2.5 kilometers long. The sites are in Paju and Jeokseong in Gyeonggi Province and Cheorwon and Goseong in Gangwon Province.

Each barrier stands about four to five meters high and two meters wide. The front face is concrete, supported by thick earth piled behind it.

Yoo said North Korea began large-scale construction in April last year to seal approaches near the MDL, halted work in late December, and resumed intermittently in March as temperatures rose.

"Recent high-resolution synthetic aperture radar images from Finnish satellite firm ICEYE show distinct white lines along the MDL corresponding to the barriers," Yoo’s office said. The Joint Chiefs of Staff assessment indicates North Korea is no longer building new barriers and is clearing surrounding land to improve lines of sight.

Yoo described the structures as a symbolic expression of North Korea’s “two-state theory” and likened them to a Berlin Wall on the Korean Peninsula. He urged the military to reflect the change in its operational plans.


이윤태 oldsport@donga.com