South Korea announces agreement with North Korea over garbage balloons

South Korea’s National Security Council is demanding that the cabinet suspend a military agreement after North Korea sent balloons filled with garbage to the South, saying Pyongyang was responding to a propaganda campaign by the South.

South Korea announced plans on Monday to suspend a military agreement signed with North Korea in 2018.

This was announced after the northern neighbour released hundreds of balloons and dropped garbage across South Korea.

What do we know about the dispute over garbage balloons?
South Korea’s National Security Council said it would submit the plan to suspend the military pact with the North to the Cabinet for approval at a meeting on Tuesday.

The suspension will allow South Korea to conduct exercises near the military border and take “sufficient and immediate measures” in response to the alleged provocation from Pyongyang, it said.

The council said it would advise the cabinet to maintain the suspension “until mutual trust between the two Koreas is restored.”

She did not provide any further details about the planned measures.

North Korea said it sent the balloons filled with garbage and excrement in response to an alleged propaganda campaign by defectors from the South and described the action as an effective countermeasure.

Activists regularly send inflatable figures with anti-Pyongyang leaflets and USB sticks with South Korean music videos and television series, as well as food, medicine and money to North Korea.

What was the Korean Military Pact?
The military pact was the result of months of summit meetings between North and South Korea in 2018 and was intended to help ease tensions.

Last year, North Korea said it was no longer bound by the agreement and stationed troops and weapons near the border.

South Korea partially suspended the agreement after North Korea launched a spy satellite into orbit.

The National Security Council said South Korea’s continued partial compliance with the pact had caused “significant problems” in responding to security threats.

Relations between the two states on the Korean peninsula have deteriorated in recent years as North Korea intensified its ballistic missile testing program in violation of UN sanctions.