South Korea wants to cancel peace agreement because of North Korean dung balloons

For several days, North Korea released hundreds of balloons to drop garbage and litter over South Korea, an angry response to previous leafleting campaigns among South Korean civilians.

South Korea announced on Sunday that it would respond with “unbearable” retaliatory measures, after which North Korea abruptly announced that it would no longer allow balloons to fly over the border.

On Monday, the South Korean president’s National Security Council said it had decided to suspend a 2018 inter-Korean agreement aimed at ending hostilities on the front lines until mutual trust between the two Koreas is restored, according to the president’s office.

The Security Council said the suspension would allow South Korea to resume its military exercises near the border with North Korea and to respond promptly and effectively to North Korean provocations.

It said a proposal for suspension would be submitted to the Cabinet Council for approval on Tuesday.

Observers say South Korea needs the suspension of the agreement so it can resume broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda, K-pop songs and foreign news over loudspeakers at the border.

They say such broadcasts have previously caused problems in the tightly controlled north, where most of the 26 million residents are denied official access to foreign news.

The 2018 agreement, reached during a brief period of reconciliation between then-liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, requires the two Koreas to cease all hostile acts against each other, including propaganda broadcasts and leaflet campaigns.

However, the agreement does not clearly state that the distribution of leaflets to civilians should also be banned. This has allowed South Korean activists to continue to launch balloons to drop anti-Pyongyang leaflets, USB sticks containing South Korean dramas and world news, and US dollars into North Korea.

In anger over such leaflet campaigns, North Korea has previously fired at incoming balloons and destroyed an unoccupied inter-Korean liaison office in the North that had been built by South Korea.

The 2018 agreement was already in danger of collapsing. Tensions escalated after North Korea launched a spy satellite last November. Both Koreas then took steps that violated the agreement: South Korea resumed aerial surveillance, North Korea restored border posts.

Since last Tuesday, a total of around 1,000 North Korean balloons have been discovered in various parts of South Korea, transporting fertilizer, cigarette butts, scraps of fabric and waste paper. According to the South Korean military, no dangerous substances were found.

On Sunday evening, North Korea’s Deputy Defense Minister Kim Kang Il said the North would stop its balloon campaign because it had “made South Koreans feel uncomfortable enough.”

He said North Korea would resume ballooning if South Korean activists resumed their own ballooning activities.

According to experts, North Korea is using the balloon campaign – reportedly the first of its kind in seven years – to trigger a conflict in South Korea over the current conservative government’s tough policies towards the North.

Since 2022, North Korea has dramatically increased its weapons tests. Analysts see this as an attempt to strengthen its nuclear capacity and increase its influence in future diplomacy with the United States.