South Korea has proposed military talks with North Korea to resolve disagreements about where their border lies and prevent accidental clashes in frontline areas, seeking to ease tensions after recent landmine blasts injured three South Korean soldiers.
It's unclear whether North Korea will agree to talks.
Authoritarian leader Kim Jong-un has taken a hard line towards Seoul and has suspended virtually all dialogue and co-operation with the South in recent years.
Meanwhile, North Korea has been adding mines, barbed wire fences, tactical roads, anti-tank walls and other fortifications to what's already one of the world's most heavily armed borders.
South Korea's military has said North Korean soldiers crossed the border's military demarcation line 50 times during fortification work in 2026, and that it responded with warning shots and broadcasts.
The South's military made a proposal for similar talks in November that was ignored by the North.
Seoul has shown greater urgency to ease tensions after the September 21 mine blasts at the border, which the South's military concluded were caused by North Korean mines planted south of the military demarcation line.
"Our Ministry of National Defence officially proposes to North Korean authorities that South-North military talks be held to mutually confirm the exact location of the ground military demarcation line between the South and the North, discuss the restoration of military communication lines, and discuss measures to prevent accidental clashes in border areas," Kim Hong-cheol, South Korea's deputy minister for defence policy, said in a televised statement on Friday.
He said the South was also open to three-way talks involving the US-led United Nations Command.
The proposal came days after Kim Jong-un's powerful sister visited frontline areas where North Korean troops are reinforcing the border.
During her visit, she renewed a threat to retaliate against any South Korean provocation aimed at the fortification work.
Kim Yo-jong also said the North planned to activate border loudspeakers for anti-Seoul propaganda broadcasts, a psychological warfare tactic long used by both Koreas, and has placed unspecified "new counter-means" on alert along the border.
She blamed the South for firing warning shots and broadcasting warnings towards North Korean soldiers fortifying the border under what she called a false pretext that they were crossing the demarcation line.
South Korean officials have said North Korea's recent border activities have highlighted the Koreas' disagreement over exactly where the military demarcation line lies.
The line was drawn up under the 1953 armistice that stopped the fighting of the Korean War, and some decades-old boundary markers have been lost over time.