This undated satellite image purports to show four concrete barriers, each about 1½ miles long, being built along the border by North Korea. (ICEYE/Yu Yong-weon)
Satellite images obtained by a South Korean lawmaker show that the North is constructing a roughly 6-mile-long anti-tank barrier resembling the Cold War-era Berlin Wall, a lawmaker in Seoul said this week.
Four concrete barriers, each about 1½ miles long, are being built along the border with South Korea, according to a Tuesday news release from Rep. Yu Yong-weon of the conservative, main opposition People Power Party.
The images were taken at an unspecified date by ICEYE, a Finland-based satellite company that has launched 44 satellites since 2018. The firm has offices in Japan, Poland, Spain and the United States, according to its website.
The barriers measure between 13 and 16 feet high and 6½ feet wide, with thick piles of soil behind them, according to Yu’s release. If connected, the structures would span approximately 6 miles.
The formations resemble a “ ’Korean Berlin Wall’ crossing the Korean Peninsula” and are “creating a wasteland” around the area, the release said.
Yu urged the South Korean military to prepare a response plan.
“We need to perform an escape maneuver or destroy the barriers in an emergency, and we need to prepare immediate military action since it is considered a military obstacle,” he wrote.
The two Koreas are separated by the Demilitarized Zone, a heavily fortified buffer measuring 2½ miles wide and 160 miles long. Concrete vehicle barriers are also in place on the South Korean side of the border.
“North Korea’s anti-tank barrier is a symbolic structure showing the ‘two-state theory,’ and they will take full advantage of it in their domestic politics,” Yu said in the release.
The “two-state theory” refers to the continued coexistence of the two Koreas rather than reunification of the peninsula.
South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said during a parliamentary session Tuesday that Seoul will continue to coexist with Pyongyang and will not pursue reunification through force.
North Korean forces have previously been observed carrying out other construction projects along the border since June 2024, including reinforcing roads and building additional walls, according to South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense.
