S. Korea to consider scrapping 'buffer zone' pact with DPRK: President

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
4 Jan 2023 10:07

South Korea's President instructs his security aides to consider suspending a 2018 agreement with the DPRK should it carries out another "provocation".

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol (AP)

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Wednesday that he would consider suspending a 2018 agreement that created maritime buffer zones with North Korea (the DPRK), should Pyongyang "violate" Seoul's territory again.

Struck during a period of high-profile diplomacy at a summit in Pyongyang, the deal aimed to reduce military tensions along the heavily fortified border.

At the time, the two sides agreed to "cease various military exercises aimed at each other along the military demarcation line."

South Korea claimed the DPRK fired artillery shots into the maritime "buffer zones" multiple times in 2022 and sent five drones across the border into South Korean airspace last week.

North Korea says its shelling this afternoon was a "tit for tat" response to South Korean military activity, says KCNA. pic.twitter.com/j9xkzjWkvC
— William Gallo (@GalloVOA) December 5, 2022

This prompted growing calls from Seoul's ruling-party parliamentarians to scrap the four-year-old deal, inked under then-President Moon Jae-in.

On Wednesday, Yoon instructed his security aides "to consider suspending the military agreement if the North carries out another provocation violating our territory," spokesperson Kim Eun-hye told reporters.

Yoon also called for "a large-scale production of small-size drones that are hard to be detected by the end of the year" and the creation of a multi-purpose drone unit for an "overwhelming counter-offensive capability."

The DPRK's drone mission, the first in five years, prompted an apology from Seoul's Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup after the military failed to shoot down any of the unmanned aircraft despite scrambling jets for a five-hour operation.

Hong Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification told AFP that scrapping the 2018 deal would "increase the chance of heightened military tensions and an actual clash in border areas."

According to Hong, despite Pyongyang "violating" the deal, the agreement still helped with "preventing a major military clash."

"It will be a much different story if Yoon puts an official, political end to the agreement," he indicated.

In the same context, South Korea's presidential office said Seoul and Washington are discussing joint planning and exercises involving US nuclear assets to counter growing "North Korean threats" after US President Joe Biden said no such joint drills would take place.

Yoon's office said the two security allies are "in talks over information-sharing, joint planning and the joint implementation plans that follow with regard to the operation of US nuclear assets to respond to North Korea's nuclear weapons."

On New Year's Eve, DPRK leader Kim Jong Un accused Washington and Seoul of carrying out "a plot to isolate and stifle" Pyongyang, which is "unparalleled in human history," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

Kim explained that the circumstances required Pyongyang to "double down our efforts to develop our military power overwhelmingly" and "to safeguard our sovereignty, safety, and basic national interest to cope with the dangerous military moves by the US and other hostile forces that target us."

"It highlights the importance and necessity of mass producing tactical nuclear weapons and calls for an exponential increase of the nation's nuclear arsenal," he added.

This comes after South Korea's military said the DPRK fired a short-range ballistic missile toward the Sea of Japan in the first test fire in 2023, Yonhap news agency reported.