South Korea asks UN Security Council to press North Korea over DMZ land mine blast

South Korea is preparing to lodge a formal communication with the United Nations Security Council, urging international attention to a recent border incident and demanding that North Korea apologize for a land mine blast in the Demilitarized Zone.

The South Korean foreign ministry announced on Thursday that the diplomatic letter, addressed to the rotating president of the Security Council, will ask Pyongyang to accept responsibility for violating the Armistice Agreement. The move follows an explosion on Sept. 21 inside the border zone that wounded three South Korean military personnel, leaving two of them with severe injuries.

Following the incident, a joint inquiry conducted by the South Korean armed forces alongside the United Nations Command determined that the detonation occurred because North Korean forces had placed explosive devices south of the Military Demarcation Line. Investigators established that the placement of the ordnance breached the terms of the armistice that brought fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War to a halt.

According to ministry spokesperson Park Doo-soon, speaking at a scheduled media briefing, the correspondence will detail the findings that North Korean soldiers deployed the mines. It will call on the authorities in Pyongyang to offer an apology, act responsibly regarding the violation, and engage in discussions aimed at rebuilding confidence and halting any further rise in border tensions.

Park stated that the official document is scheduled for delivery on Thursday, U.S. time, submitted under the name of South Korea's representative to the United Nations.

The diplomatic push comes amid heightened friction between the two Koreas. An earlier joint defense briefing held on Sept. 28, led by Maj. Gen. Yang Jin-hyuk of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, had presented preliminary findings to the public confirming that the border detonations were linked directly to North Korean activity inside the buffer area.