Over the past week, nearly a thousand balloons filled with waste, ranging from cigarette butts to animal excrement, have been launched by North Korea towards its neighbor, including 600 on Sunday, according to Seoul.
“Sincere gifts”
Pyongyang claimed that these “sincere gifts” were intended to retaliate for the sending into its territory of balloons loaded with propaganda leaflets against leader Kim Jong Un. South Korea called this North Korean action “low class” and of “irrational”.
However, unlike the recent ballistic missile launches, this action does not violate the sanctions imposed by the United Nations on the North Korean regime. Pyongyang pledged on Sunday to temporarily “suspend” these balloon releases, ensuring that this “countermeasure” had been effective.
For the North, the military agreement was already far away
The 2018 military agreement, signed during a period of warming relations between the two countries which remain technically at war, aims to reduce tensions on the peninsula particularly along the highly secure inter-Korean border. Seoul partially suspended the deal last November to protest Pyongyang’s successful launch of a spy satellite, and the North said it would no longer honor it at all.
As a result, the National Security Council in Seoul declared the agreement “virtually null and void due to North Korea’s declaration of de facto abandonment”, but that compliance with the rest of the agreement put Seoul at a disadvantage in terms of its ability to respond to threats such as balloons.
Being able to respond
Complying with the agreement “poses significant challenges to the readiness of our armed forces, particularly in the context of a series of recent provocations by North Korea, which are causing real and threaten our citizens,” the South Korean government said.
This decision will allow “military training in areas around the military demarcation line” and “more adequate and immediate responses to North Korean provocations.” The decision will need to be approved at a cabinet meeting scheduled for Tuesday before taking effect.
Maximum voltage
Relations between the two Koreas are at their lowest point in years, with diplomacy long at a standstill and Kim Jong Un intensifying testing and continuing to develop his weapons while the South moves closer to its main security ally, Washington.
South Korea’s decision to abandon the 2018 agreement shows “that it will not tolerate garbage balloons crossing the border, taking into account international standards and the conditions of the truce,” Hong Min said, senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. “However, this could further provoke Pyongyang because it is impossible to physically block balloons drifting south,” he added.
The balloons, which did not contain hazardous materials, landed in South Korea’s northern provinces, including the capital Seoul and the adjacent Gyeonggi region, which together are home to almost half of the South’s population. South Korean officials say this could lead to a resumption of loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts on the border with the North, which has always infuriated Pyongyang.
