South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and the Cabinet Council approved a proposal to suspend a 2018 agreement that decreases military activity at the border with North Korea.
- The agreement had ordered both sides to cease live fire exercises and aerial drills at the border.
- Last year, North Korea said it would not abide by the agreement, and with South Korea also abandoning the pact, the border could get more t
ense.
With the suspension of the agreement, South Korea will now be able to recommence loudspeaker broadcasts, a means of psychological warfare that can counter the widespread propaganda in North Korea.
“There are things that we can immediately do, and we could make them public, and a lot of those things can be seen as largely depending on North Korea,” said Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Lee Sung-jun, according to Yonhap News Agency.
Tensions are increasing on the Korean Peninsula, where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has grown bolder and earlier this year said he would no longer seek peaceful reunification with South Korea.
Kim has continued a spate of escalatory missile tests and is now launching spy satellites into space. One spy satellite made it into orbit last year, while a May launch failed.
The suspension of the border agreement, however, comes after North Korea sent balloons filled with trash over the border.
Pyongyang was sending them in response to South Korea dropping leaflets critical of its government into North Korea.
In an interview with Time magazine, President Biden said the situation in North Korea is “equally as threatening as it was before,” but stressed the U.S. was building up alliances in the Indo-Pacific.
“We are much stronger in the Pacific than we ever were before,” he said.
Read more South Korea-North Korea news at TheHill.com.
