South Korea may suspend a military pact signed with North Korea in 2018 aimed at easing tensions, the presidential office said on Monday, after Seoul warned of a harsh response to Pyongyang’s launch of balloons carrying debris into the South, Younhap News reports.
North Korea has launched hundreds of balloons carried by wind across the border and dropped debris on South Korea, which called it a provocation. The National Security Council said it would submit a plan to suspend the military agreement in its entirety to the Cabinet for approval at a meeting on Tuesday.
Suspending the agreement would allow the South to train near the military border and take “sufficient and immediate action” in response to North Korea’s provocation, the council said in a statement.
The pact, which was the most significant agreement reached in months of historic summits between the two Koreas in 2018, was all but written off when Pyongyang said last year it was no longer bound by it. Since then, the North has stationed soldiers and weapons at guard posts near the military border.
While continuing to honour the pact, “there have been significant problems with the combat readiness of our armed forces”, the council said.
Tensions are rising
South Korea has previously said it would take “intolerable” measures against North Korea for sending rubbish balloons across the border, which could include propaganda from loudspeakers set up at the border aimed at the North.
North Korea said the balloons were a response to a propaganda campaign by North Korean defectors and activists in the South who regularly send inflatable balloons containing anti-Pyongyang leaflets, food, medicine, money and USB sticks with music videos and K-pop dramas across the border.
North Korea has reacted angrily to the campaign because it is concerned about the potential impact of the materials on the psychology of people who read or listen to them and the state’s control over the population, experts say.
