Seoul, Jun 4 (EFE).- South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol approved Tuesday a motion to suspend a military treaty signed with the North in 2018 after Pyongyang sent some 1,000 balloons filled with waste to the South over the last week.
North Korean soldiers build a strongpoint in the Demilitarized Zone, in this photo taken from a observation tower in Paju, South Korea, 04 June 2024. Earlier in the day, a motion calling for the full suspension of a 2018 inter-Korean tension reduction pact was passed at a Cabinet meeting following North Korea’s sending of hundreds of trash-filled balloons into South Korea in the past few days. EFE-EPA/YONHAP SOUTH KOREA OUT
Yoon ratified the motion a few hours after it was approved in a Cabinet meeting, in which Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said that “North Korea’s continuous provocations not only greatly threaten the lives and safety of our people, but also seriously undermine peace on the Korean Peninsula.”
North Korean soldiers build a strongpoint in the Demilitarized Zone, in this photo taken from a observation tower in Paju, South Korea, 04 June 2024. EFE-EPA/YONHAP SOUTH KOREA OUT
On Monday, the National Security Council (NSC) proposed completely suspending the military agreement in response to actions by Pyongyang, which has also jammed GPS signals in waters near the border islands of South Korea and conducted an artillery drill in recent days.
The pact is suspended “until mutual trust between the South and the North is restored,” he added.
The total suspension of the pact, signed in Pyongyang during the brief rapprochement between the two Koreas in 2018, will allow the South to resume military maneuvers near the border and resume propaganda broadcasts via loudspeakers, including critical speeches against the North Korean regime or K-Pop songs, at the border.
North Korea decided to suspend the 2018 pact in November last year after Seoul announced that it was suspending a clause in the pact to be able to resume military surveillance operations on the border in response to the launch of a spy satellite by Pyongyang.
Last week, Pyongyang tried unsuccessfully to put another spy satellite into orbit, and, in addition to sending the balloons on Thursday, it conducted an artillery drill and for five days jammed GPS signals in waters near the border islands of South Korea.
At the beginning of the year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared South Korea his country’s “principal enemy” and ordered the goal of reunification to be removed from the constitution.
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