Soldiers on duty at North Korea’s Panmungak closely monitored US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s visit to the Joint Security Area (JSA) on Tuesday morning.
At 10:25 am on Tuesday, Thomas-Greenfield visited the JSA’s Freedom House on the inter-Korean border. Before surveying the JSA, she headed to the meeting room of the UNC Military Armistice Commission. From that point on, soldiers with Canon cameras and binoculars emerged from the third floor of North Korea’s Panmungak on the other side of the DMZ to monitor the situation.
Wearing light blue face masks, the soldiers monitored the situation through binoculars and snapped shots individually before grouping up and chatting as they kept an eye on whether any regulations were broken.
From the first floor of Panmungak, an armed soldier quietly stood guard.
North Korea reintroduced arms to its soldiers on guard in the JSA in late November of last year, following its renunciation of the buffer-creating Sept. 19 inter-Korean military agreement of 2018. Soldiers on the North side continue to guard with arms.
Once Thomas-Greenfield and members of US Embassy staff entered the House of Freedom, the soldiers who had been keeping tabs on the ambassador from the third-floor balcony of Panmungak went back inside.
The North Korean soldiers didn’t reappear when the ambassador and members of the UN Command leadership surveyed the JSA from the rooftop of the House of Freedom.
UN Command explained that it would monitor any visitors to the JSA on the North's side the same way.
By Kim Hye-yun, staff reporter
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