When the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) released preliminary investigation findings indicating a very high likelihood that North Korean forces had planted the landmines responsible for the September 21 explosion in the DMZ along the western front in the 25th Infantry Division’s area of responsibility, North Korea responded within a day with a statement issued in the name of Kim Yo-jong, Deputy Department Director of the Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee (Director of the General Affairs Department). Kim’s immediate intervention in an incident that would normally have been expected to elicit a rebuttal at the working level represented a response at the highest level, bypassing several layers of the decision-making process and directly reflecting the intentions of the top leadership. The statement revolved around two main objectives: denying responsibility for the landmine incident and ensuring the continued implementation of border fortification works. Its key elements were Kim Yo-jong’s swift intervention, the protection of the southern border fortification project, the preemptive blocking of corresponding South Korean measures, and pressure on the Blue House to make a political decision.
