hankyoreh

On Sept. 19, 2018, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo (front left) and North Korean Defense Minister No Kwang-chol (front right) shake hands after signing the Agreement on the Implementation of the Historic Panmunjom Declaration in the Military Domain, known also as the Comprehensive Military Agreement or Sept. 18 military agreement, as the respective leaders of the South and North look on. (Pyongyang press pool)

The Sept. 19 inter-Korean military agreement is hanging by a thread after President Yoon Suk-yeol’s comments on Wednesday calling for the suspension of the agreement to be considered. The president said the suspension of the agreement, which has often been called a safety valve for inter-Korean relations, should be considered if the North conducts another provocation that violates South Korean territory.

On Jan. 1, the same day when Kim Jong-un called the “South Korean puppets” the North’s “undoubted enemy,” Yoon’s call for being ready for battle further raised tensions and increased the risk of accidental clashes between the two Koreas.

The comprehensive military agreement, known formally as the Agreement on the Implementation of the Historic Panmunjom Declaration in the Military Domain, signed by the two Koreas in 2018 was aimed at the cessation of hostilities along land, sea and air buffer zones based on the Military Demarcation Line (MDL). The purpose of the agreement is to prevent accidental armed clashes in the border zones between North and South.

As such, if the agreement is suspended, the two Koreas will face the risk of this important security buffer disappearing.

Yoon had hinted at the possibility of scrapping the agreement ever since he was a presidential candidate, when he said “if there is no change [from North Korea] and they only keep calling for us to withdraw our hostile policy, it is difficult for us to continue adhering to the agreement.”

However, unless the North is prepared for a military confrontation with the South, a violation of the South’s territory won’t happen that easily.

Yoon also attached a condition to suspending the agreement, namely, if the North conducts another provocation that infringes on the South’s territory. In other words, the conditions to consider the suspension of the agreement will not be satisfied just by further violations of the inter-Korean military agreement by the North.

In the context of inter-Korean relations, territorial infringement recognized by the government means a violation of the MDL on land or the Northern Limit Line (NLL) at sea.

For example, the artillery fire into maritime buffer zones off the peninsula’s eastern and western coasts north of the NLL on Oct. 14 last year was in violation of the Sept. 19 agreement but not considered territorial infringement. On the other hand, North Korea’s recent flying of drones on Dec. 26 over northern parts of Seoul is considered a violation of the South’s territorial sovereignty.

When North Korea fired a missile across the NLL which fell into international waters on Nov. 2 last year, Yoon said on Facebook that it was a “de-facto infringement” on South Korean territory.

The problem is that, since the Yoon administration came to power, the two Koreas are branding each other as enemies and are stuck in a tit-for-tat retaliation cycle by continuously responding to the other’s violations of the Sept. 19 agreement. The entire situation has become like a bad game of chicken.

“It has been decided [by the South] that only an overwhelming response to North Korean provocations would neutralize their will to conduct [more] provocations,” a presidential office official told the Hankyoreh on Wednesday.

This has now become a situation where the leaders of the two Koreas are directly engaged in a showdown of pride.

A key example of this was when air siren warnings were issued on Ulleung Island on Nov. 2 last year after a missile fired by the North fell into waters south of the NLL and the South responded by flying fighter jets and shooting three air-to-ground missiles at an “appropriate distance.”

On that day, both South and North Korea violated the Sept. 19 military agreement. This is why experts believe that it is unlikely that Kim Jong-un will heed Yoon's “warning” about considering the suspension of the agreement.

Experts are concerned about the high risk that North Korea, which continues its shows of force, will conduct provocations in so-called gray zones, such as the NLL.

If the North Korean leader does, however, decide to disregard Yoon’s warnings about infringing on the South’s territory, the North’s target will most likely be the NLL at sea rather than the MDL on land.

A violation of the MDL also constitutes a violation of the Armistice Agreement, which has internationally recognized legal validity. A violation of the NLL, however, would not be a violation of the Armistice Agreement since the line was unilaterally drawn by the United Nations Command.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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