South Korea plans to nullify peace deal to punish North Korea over trash-carrying balloon launches

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea announced Monday it’ll suspend a rapprochement deal with North Korea to punish it over its launches of trash-carrying balloons, even after the North said it would halt its balloon campaign.

Over several days, North Korea flew hundreds of balloons to drop trash and manure on South Korea in an angry reaction against previous South Korean civilian leafleting campaigns. On Sunday, South Korea said it would take “unbearable” retaliatory steps in response, before North Korea abruptly announced it would stop flying balloons across the border.

On Monday, South Korea’s presidential national security council said it has decided to suspend a 2018 inter-Korean agreement aimed at easing frontline animosities, until mutual trust between the two Koreas is restored, according to the presidential office.

The security council said the suspension would allow South Korea to resume military drills near the border with North Korea and take effective, immediate responses to provocations by North Korea. It said a proposal on the suspension will be introduced at the Cabinet Council on Tuesday for approval.

Observers say South Korea needs the deal’s suspension to restart blasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts, K-pop songs and outside news from border loudspeakers. They say such broadcasts have previously stung in the rigidly controlled North, where most of its 26 million people are not allowed official accesses to foreign news.

The 2018 agreement, reached during a brief period of reconciliation between then-liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, require the Koreas to cease all hostile acts against each other, including propaganda broadcasts and leafleting