▲ The presidential office (Yonhap)
▲ Prime Minister Han Duck-soo bangs the gavel during a Cabinet meeting at the government complex in Seoul on June 4, 2024. (Yonhap)

(2nd LD) Cabinet-military pact

(2nd LD) Yoon endorses motion fully suspending inter-Korean tension reduction pact

(ATTN: UPDATES with President Yoon's endorsement; CHANGES headline; ADDS photo)

By Lee Haye-ah

SEOUL, June 4 (Yonhap) -- President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday endorsed a motion calling for the full suspension of a 2018 inter-Korean tension reduction pact after North Korea sent hundreds of balloons carrying trash across the border.

Yoon signed off on the motion shortly after it was approved during a Cabinet meeting held a day after the presidential National Security Council decided to suspend the Comprehensive Military Agreement in response to the North's balloon campaign and jamming of GPS signals in recent days.

"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," Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said during the Cabinet meeting, also citing the North's ballistic missile launches on Thursday.

"(The pact's suspension) is legitimate under procedures stipulated by our law, enables military exercises that were restricted near the Military Demarcation Line under the Sept. 19 military agreement, and enables us to take more sufficient and immediate action against North Korea's provocations," he said, noting the suspension will be effective "until mutual trust between the South and the North is restored."

The full suspension of the pact, which is often dubbed the "Sept. 19 military agreement" after the day when it was signed in 2018, will allow South Korea to resume military training near the border and restart loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts into the North.

The government already suspended part of the agreement in November in response to North Korea's successful launch of a military spy satellite.

Under the partial suspension, no-fly zones around the border were lifted to allow South Korea to resume reconnaissance and surveillance activities in the area.

A resumption of loudspeaker broadcasts is certain to anger Pyongyang, as they have typically aired criticism of the Kim Jong-un regime's human rights abuses, as well as news and K-pop songs.

North Korea sent nearly 1,000 trash-carrying balloons into the South starting last Tuesday, calling it a "tit-for-tat" action against South Korean activists sending propaganda leaflets into the North.

After Seoul hinted at resuming loudspeaker broadcasts on Sunday, Pyongyang said it would temporarily halt the balloon operations.

"We urge North Korea once again to immediately halt all provocations threatening peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, and to come forward to the path to joint prosperity between South and North," Han said.

(END)

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