North Korea building roads and walls inside Demilitarised Zone. Seoul reacts

North Korea is building roads and walls inside theDemilitarised Zone (DMZ)that separates it from the South, a report by theYonhap news agency said on Saturday (June 15). Citing a source from the South Korean military, the report said that the construction activitiesare taking place northof the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) that runs through the middle of the DMZ.

The developments come after an incident last week where the South Korean militaryfired warning shots afterNorthKorean soldiers briefly crossed the MDL.

"Recently, theNorthKorean military has been erecting walls, digging the ground and constructing roads in some areas between the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) and the Northern Limit Line in the DMZ," the South Korean military source, who chose to remain anonymous, told Yonhap.

Seoul reacts to building of roads, walls inside DMZ

On Saturday, the South Korean military said in a statement that it was closely trackingand monitoring the activities of theNorthKorean military, addingthat a further analysis was required.

The military added that it could not sharethe South Korean response to these actions "to ensure the safety of the personnel proceeding with an operation", without offering further details.

Earlier this week, South Korea's spy agency told the news agency AFP it detected signs that Pyongyangwas demolishing sections of a railway line connecting the two countries.

A propaganda war

Tensions are already high between the two Koreas over the escalation of the propaganda war. Last month, North Korea started sendingballoons carrying trash into the South, describing them as retaliation for the propaganda balloons sent the other way by anti-Pyongyang activists.

Then, Seoul resumed blasting K-pop songs and news broadcasts in theNorth, using loudspeakers installed at the border.

The resumption of the loudspeaker campaignprompted Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un,to threaten an unspecified "new countermeasure."

(With inputs from agencies)