In his Armed Forces Day address on the 1st, President Lee Jae-myung described the landmine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the western front as an "unexpected accident," without mentioning North Korea. That stands in contrast to the United Nations Command and Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul, who had explicitly assigned responsibility, calling it "a violation of the armistice agreement by North Korea." At a Cabinet meeting on Sept. 29, Lee said the government would "take necessary measures in line with the facts," and the following day, while visiting the wounded soldiers, he again did not directly raise North Korea's responsibility. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the UNC plan to announce their final investigation findings and follow-up measures as early as next week. There is reason to wait for those findings. But if the president, as commander in chief, does not clearly state his resolve to establish responsibility and respond firmly, it can only deepen anxiety among soldiers and the public.
Unlike last year's address, Lee this year stressed his willingness to pursue dialogue to ease strained inter-Korean relations, pledging to "consistently carry forward practical steps to lower military tensions." He placed particular emphasis on restoring dialogue, saying that "the knots in inter-Korean relations are tangled in complex ways, but we will patiently untie them one by one." The DMZ mine explosion is a sensitive matter that will affect inter-Korean relations. With a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un also under discussion for later this year, the government's cautious posture is understandable. But North Korea's responsibility must not be blurred in order to preserve the mood for talks. On a matter involving the lives and safety of soldiers, scrambling to avoid offending Pyongyang risks sending the wrong signal — that provocations carry no cost.
The door should be kept open to negotiations on North Korea's denuclearization and to improved inter-Korean relations, but firm principles must hold on security. When North Korea staged its wooden-box landmine provocation in 2015, the South Korean military responded with strong countermeasures, including resuming loudspeaker broadcasts across the border, and the North expressed regret over the mine explosion that wounded the soldiers. The government should disclose the investigation findings transparently and, if North Korea's responsibility is confirmed, take effective countermeasures. Even if the tools differ from those used then, firm pressure is needed to prevent a recurrence. A policy that relies on North Korea's goodwill and change can never achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula, let alone denuclearization.
