North Korea’s military says it will start work on Wednesday to cut road and railway links to South Korea and fortify defensive structures on its side of the border.
The General Staff of the Korean People’s Army made the announcement on Wednesday through the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
The General Staff said, “Given the critical situation where touch-and-go of war is ever-escalating in the area along the southern border,” the military will “permanently shut off and block” the border with South Korea, which it calls its “primary hostile state.”
It claimed that sealing the border is a “self-defensive measure for inhibiting war and defending the security” of North Korea.
The North also said it informed the US military of the fortification project at 9:45 a.m. Wednesday to “prevent any misjudgment and accidental conflict.”
In a speech to delegates at the Supreme People’s Assembly in January, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered that the country’s Constitution be revised to define South Korea as the “No.1 hostile country.”
The South Korean military revealed in June that North Korean troops are laying mines, reinforcing roads and building what are believed to be anti-tank barriers near the border.