S. Korea seeks to formally cite N. Korea for armistice violation following DMZ blast: defense ministry

South Korea is seeking to formally declare North Korea's recent border activities as a violation of the Armistice Agreement following a joint investigation with the U.N. Command (UNC), the defense ministry said Wednesday. The move comes as Seoul is weighing countermeasures after concluding that land mines deliberately planted by North Korea on the South's side of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) were the cause of the Sept. 21 blast that left three South Korean soldiers wounded, two of them seriously. North Korea's apparent border intrusion and mine-laying activities south of the MDL clearly constitute violations of the ceasefire agreement that halted the 1950-53 Korean War, Seoul said earlier. "Following a joint investigation with the UNC into North Korea's MDL incursions, we plan to formalize its armistice violations and strongly demand an immediate halt to border breaches and to restore the DMZ to its original state," the ministry said in a document submitted to lawmakers ahead of an annual parliamentary audit. "Concurrently, we are pushing for inter-Korean military talks to prevent