South Korea suspends military alliance with North Korea over garbage balloons

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea plans to suspend a military agreement signed with North Korea in 2018 to ease tensions, the presidential office said on Monday, after Seoul warned of strong reactions to balloons carrying garbage launched by Pyongyang toward the South.

North Korea released hundreds of wind-borne balloons across the border and dumped garbage across South Korea. South Korea called this a provocation and rejected Pyongyang’s claim that it was done to inconvenience its neighbor.

The National Security Council said it would submit the plan to suspend the entire military agreement to the Cabinet for approval at a meeting on Tuesday.

The suspension of the agreement will allow the South to conduct exercises near the military border and take “sufficient and immediate measures” in response to North Korea’s provocation, the council said in a statement.

What these measures might be was not explained in detail.

The pact, which was the most substantive agreement to emerge from months of historic summits between the two Koreas in 2018, was effectively shelved when Pyongyang announced last year that it was no longer bound by the pact.

Since then, the North has stationed troops and weapons at guard posts near the military border.

Continued compliance with the pact “has created significant problems with the operational readiness of our armed forces,” the Council statement said.

South Korea had previously said it would take “unbearable” measures against North Korea for sending the garbage balloons across the border. This could include broadcasting propaganda against the North from loudspeakers set up at the border.

North Korea said the balloons were in retaliation for a propaganda campaign by North Korean defectors and activists in the South, who regularly sent inflatable balloons across the border containing anti-Pyongyang leaflets, food, medicine, money and USB sticks with K-pop music videos and dramas.

North Korea has reacted angrily to the campaign because of concerns about the potential impact of the materials on the psyche of people who read or listen to them, as well as on state control of the public, experts say.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Kim Coghill and Michael Perry)