🇰🇵❌🇰🇷 — South Korean media Yonhap News Agency reports, quoting ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff: North Korea blew up Gyeongui Line and Donghae Line inter-Korean connecting roads

➡️ In a text message sent to the Ministry of National Defense press corps that day, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said:

"North Korea blew up some sections north of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) on the Gyeongui Line and Donghae Line inter-Korean connecting roads around noon today,"
and
"Our military is strengthening its surveillance and alert posture."

➡️ North Korea's blasting of the Gyeongui Line and Donghae Line inter-Korean connecting roads is interpreted as an intention to completely cut off the inter-Korean land route and build fortifications.

➡️ Earlier, the North Korean military's General Staff Department announced in a press release on the 9th, "Starting on the 9th, we will completely cut off the roads and railroads in our area connected to South Korea and begin construction to fortify them with strong defensive structures."

➡️ On the same day, North Korea announced in a notice sent through the UN-North Korean military communication line, "Starting October 9, our side will carry out construction to completely cut off the roads and railroads in the eastern and western areas of the southern border that connected our area to South Korea."

➡️ Lee Seong-jun, director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Public Relations Office, said in a regular briefing the previous day, "We have identified that they have installed a barrier on the road and are preparing to blow up the road behind it."

➡️ Since the end of last year, North Korea has been carrying out minefields around roads, removing streetlights, removing railroad tracks, and demolishing adjacent auxiliary buildings in order to cut off land routes between the South and the North.

➡️ The land routes connecting the South and the North include the Donghae Line, Gyeongui Line, Arrowhead Hill, and the Joint Security Area (JSA) passageway, which are railways and roads.

➡️ According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, North Korea scattered leaf mines near the Gyeongui Line in November of last year, planted mines on the Donghae Line in December of the same year, removed the fence on the Donghae Line in March of this year, and removed streetlights on the Gyeongui Line in April.

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