Seoul mulls complete suspension of inter-Korean military accord over trash balloons

The South Korean government said Monday it would raise a motion to suspend the entire 2018 inter-Korean military agreement "until trust between the two Koreas is fully restored” during a Tuesday cabinet meeting.

A balloon carrying a waste-filled bag is discovered in Incheon on Sunday. [YONHAP]

The South Korean government said Monday it would raise a motion to suspend the entire 2018 inter-Korean military agreement "until trust between the two Koreas is fully restored” during a Tuesday cabinet meeting.

The National Security Council (NSC) convened earlier Monday and determined that Pyongyang’s recent provocations, including its sending of trash-filled balloons to the South, resulted in actual harm and posed a public threat, the presidential office said.

During the meeting presided over by Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Kim Tae-hyo, the NSC said the motion is “legitimate and proper according to South Korean law,” adding it will enable more “prompt defense responses and meaningful military drills from our side, which were largely restricted by the 2018 military agreement.”

Thus, it plans to render the agreement "to suspend the entire effectiveness" of the military deal "until mutual trust between the two Koreas is restored," the presidential office added.

The inter-Korean military agreement of Sept. 19, 2018, was signed to alleviate tensions in border areas between the South and North. It included dismantling guard posts in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and establishing a no-fly zone over the military demarcation line. However, last November, the North said it would totally scrap the military accord and launch its spy satellite.

South Korean military authorities now believe the defense agreement is ineffective and obstructs defense capabilities merely in the name of peace.

On Monday, the government also vowed to “seek all viable measures to defend the safety and lives of the public.” It also decided to take additional measures to counter future provocations from the North.

President Yoon Suk Yeol was later briefed on the details of the meeting.

On Sunday evening, North Korea said it would temporarily halt sending trash-filled balloons to South Korea.

North Korean Vice Defense Minister Kim Kang-il said that the North has allowed South Koreans to "experience how unpleasant" it is to clean up the scattered waste paper. This statement was carried by the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Kim said that South Korean counterparts have now experienced what it was like to waste resources on removing such trash.

He described the North’s filth-laden balloon launches as “countermeasures” against anti-regime leaflets sent from South Korea by defectors and human rights groups.

Kim said that North Korea would resume launching such balloons across the inter-Korean border if anti-North leaflets reappeared in the country. He said the amount of trash and balloons sent to the South would be “a hundred times” larger than that of anti-North materials coming from the South.

According to Kim, Pyongyang had scattered “15 tons of waste paper with more than around 3,500 balloons” to border areas in the South and greater Seoul areas from last Tuesday to Sunday.

The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that around 720 balloons sent from the North were discovered as of Sunday 1 p.m. These balloons and the waste they carried were found in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Chungcheong and North Gyeongsang.

Combined with the first batch of 260 balloons flown into the South between Tuesday and Wednesday, nearly 1,000 balloons have been identified and collected by South Korea.

On Sunday, South Korea warned of stern measures against North Korea’s balloon intrusion, including the option of resuming loudspeaker broadcasts denouncing the North’s regime.

A presidential official stated that Seoul could take “measures that the North will find unbearable” in response to such balloon launches.

Koo Byung-sam, spokesman of the South Korea's Unification Ministry, speaks during a regular press briefing on Monday at the government complex in central Seoul. [YONHAP]

On Monday, a North Korean defectors’ group in the South said it would “consider” stopping its launches of anti-regime leaflets into the North if North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “politely apologizes for covering South Koreans in filth.”

Park Sang-hak, head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea, said the same day that there is “no change” in the group’s plan to send leaflets condemning the North’s military and authoritarian regime once the winds start blowing northward.

The group released a statement condemning Pyongyang, saying, “How can the North send garbage when we sent them truth and facts about their regime, Korean dramas and trot music?”

In May, the group sent 20 large balloons to the North carrying 300,000 copies of anti-North leaflets and 2,000 USBs with South Korean trot music and dramas.

On the same day, the South Korean Unification Ministry said it would not restrain the group’s launch of anti-North leaflets across the inter-Korean border. The ministry's stance is "to respect the Supreme Court’s ruling" that removed legal restrictions on the launches.

Last September, the Supreme Court ruled that a law prohibiting the distribution of anti-North materials was “unconstitutional” and "violated people’s rights to free expression."

However, South Korean Unification Ministry spokesperson Koo Byung-sam left room for state intervention in emergency cases when the North is staging provocations, saying that police officers could take "proper measures" to curb the actions of the defectors’ group "according to the on-the-ground situation.”

BY LEE SOO-JUNG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]