South Korea will completely suspend the 2018 inter-Korean tension-reducing military pact with the nuclear-armed North, the National Security Council (NSC) in Seoul said Monday, after Pyongyang sent trash-filled balloons across the border over the last week.
Seoul said it would “suspend the entire ‘September 19 Military Agreement’ until mutual trust between the two Koreas is restored,” after partially suspending the pact in November, following Pyongyang’s successful launch of a military spy satellite.
Shortly after the partial suspension, the North announced that it had “immediately” bolted the agreement and said it would “deploy powerful armed forces and new-type military hardware in the region” along the Military Demarcation Line between the two Koreas.