NKorean Soldiers Put Down Arms to Help Plant Crops Inside the DMZ, hundreds of North Korean soldiers marched in a line with backpacks. To the west, inside the Joint Security Area that is the heart of the DMZ, a tense quiet hangs over the area that divides North from South. This is the spot that foreign tourists see, a stage where the observation decks, pavilions, pine trees, cherry blossoms and azaleas belie the tanks and traps hidden from view along the 2.5-mile-wide (4-kilometer) buffer zone. South Korean soldiers stand with fists curled at their hips in a combat-ready mode borrowed from taekwondo. Across the way, a unit of North Korean soldiers goosesteps into position, rifles slung across their backs. Visitors on a tour bus from the South Korean side peer up at a North Korean building known as Panmungak. Because of the tensions, tourists are not allowed inside the three blue conference halls straddling the border, North Korean Lt. Col. Nam Dong Ho said. Typically, they are allowed to go into the meeting rooms as soldiers from both Koreas stand guard. "This is a place that the whole world is watching, so of course it seems quiet on the surface," said Nam, who guides tours to Panmungak. But he said the prospect of war is always on the minds of soldiers manning the world's most militarized border. "Is there anyone in the world who doesn't worry about war?" he told the AP on Tuesday. We don't want a war. But if the American imperialists provoke us unjustifiably, we will answer with a nuclear war. Since early March, North Korea has steadily and dramatically ramped up the rhetoric warning of a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula, though it has quieted in recent days. Leader Kim Jong Un ordered soldiers in charge of North Korea's arsenal of missiles on standby and North Korean officers at the front line severed communications with the South Korean military. North Korea takes issue with tightened U.N. sanctions punishing Pyongyang for carrying out a long-range rocket launch in December and conducting a nuclear test in February in violation of Security Council resolutions. Pyongyang also is incensed by joint U.S.-South Korean military drills taking place now south of the border, annual exercises that this year have included nuclear-capable bombers and fighter jets.