[Editorial] North should stop and return to dialogue

President Yoon Suk Yeol has ordered the National Security Office and the Ministry of National Defense to consider “a suspension of the Sept. 19 Inter-Korean Military Agreement” if North Korea crosses the line again. His statement translates into a stern warning about the North’s unceasing missile launches last year and its seventh nuclear test expected early this year. The conservative president upholding clear principles took a dramatic departure from former liberal president Moon Jae-in who persistently took a submissive attitude toward North Korea for five years. The future of a hurried military agreement between South and North Korea in 2018 will depend on how North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will react.

The military agreement was a part of the Sept. 19 joint declaration in Pyongyang between Moon and Kim in 2018. The military agreement aimed to ease military tensions on the Korean Peninsula and build mutual trust to prevent a war. To achieve the goal, the agreement declared to stop “all hostile activities against the other” for a military implementation of the Panmunjom Declaration the two leaders made in April that year.

Despite good intentions, North Korea violated the military agreement soon. After the Kim-Trump summit failed in Hanoi in 2019, Kim first violated the agreement by commanding an artillery drill in a buffer zone in the Yellow Sea on the 9th anniversary of North Korea’s shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010. In May 2020, North Korean soldiers fired rifles toward our guard post on the DMZ. After the start of the Yoon administration last May, North Korea brazenly ignored the military agreement by shooting a number of missiles, including a test-firing of an ICBM.

But the Yoon administration did not scrap the military agreement immediately, as it has to take into account the possibility of Pyongyang taking additional actions in case Seoul first declares a scrapping of the military deal.

However, the North’s recent missile launches and the infiltration of its drones into our air space stimulated the Yoon administration once again. Yoon strongly threatened to consider a suspension of the military agreement.

But the military agreement will not become null and void immediately, as President Yoon has left some room for the military to consider the scale and pattern of actions to help avert a catastrophic situation on the peninsula.

In a closed-door meeting, Yoon ordered our military to overwhelmingly respond to any additional provocations from North Korea. North Korea must not ignore his stern warning. We urge Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table as soon as possible.