Seoul threatens to suspend agreement with Pyongyang

seoul. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said Wednesday that he is considering suspending a 2018 agreement creating a maritime buffer zone with the North if Pyongyang returns to “violate” the territory of the South.

Yoon instructed his security advisers “to consider suspending the military agreement if the North carries out another provocation on our territory,” the spokeswoman told reporters. Kim Eun-hye.

Several times in 2022, North Korea it fired artillery fire at sites designated in the agreement as part of the maritime containment zone, and last week sent five drones into South Korean airspace.

Such violations prompted calls from pro-government legislators for the Yoon government to abolish the buffer zone agreement signed by then-President Moon Jae-in.

The agreement, reached at a summit in Pyongyang during a period of intense diplomatic action, he sought to reduce military tensions on the border.

At that time, the two sides agreed to “cease various military exercises directed against each other along the demarcation line,” but Pyongyang violated the agreement last year.

Yoon also called for “large-scale production of small, hard-to-detect drones by the end of the year,” as well as creating an all-purpose drone with “overwhelming counter-offensive capability.”

The North Korean drone raid prompted the Seoul Defense Ministry to apologize that its military was unable to shoot down any of the drones despite planes chasing them for five hours.

Removing the 2018 agreement “would increase the possibility of further military tensions and a clash in the border areas,” said Hong Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification.

rrg