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President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol reads over materials during a meeting of the presidential transition committee subcommittee leaders held at their office in Seoul’s Tongui neighborhood on March 22. (Yonhap News)

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol erroneously argued Tuesday that recent rocket launches by North Korea were a “clear violation” of a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement, despite being unfamiliar with the details of the document. South Korea’s defense minister disagreed with Yoon, saying the launches did not violate the agreement.

Yoon called the North’s launches a “clear violation” of the inter-Korean military agreement signed Sept. 19, 2018, during a meeting with his transition team on Tuesday. His remarks came after North Korea launched four projectiles into the Yellow Sea at 7:18 am on Sunday from South Pyongan Province.

However, it turned out that Yoon’s remarks were not correct.

Suh Wook, South Korea’s minister of defense, challenged Yoon’s claims about the North’s recent launches during a plenary session of the National Assembly’s National Defense Committee on Tuesday, saying the launches did not violate the agreement since the projectiles landed outside the territorial scope covered by the deal.

During the session, Min Hong-cheol, a Democratic Party lawmaker, asked Suh if it was the Defense Ministry’s position that the launches did not violate the agreement, noting news of Yoon’s remarks. To this question, Suh responded, “I have not seen the news [regarding Yoon’s remarks], but the area [where the projectiles landed] was not covered by the agreement.”

Essentially Suh was saying that North Korea’s multiple rocket launches were not in violation of the inter-Korean military agreement because they were fired north of the buffer zone in the Yellow Sea.

The area around Sukchon County, where North Korea fired the four rockets, is about 60 kilometers north of Pyongyang. Moreover, this is 100 kilometers north of Cho Island, where the buffer zone in the Yellow Sea lies. The buffer zone on the North Korean side is a maritime area between Cho Island, located below Nampo Port in South Pyongan Province, and the Northern Limit Line (NLL), spanning 50 kilometers.

In signing the Sept. 19 military agreement in 2018, the two Koreas agreed to halt all hostilities against each other and set buffer zones along their air, land and sea borders to reduce tensions and prevent accidental clashes starting Nov. 1 of that year. As a result, live-fire exercises and maritime maneuver exercises were ceased in the Yellow Sea, among other risk-reducing measures.

When the controversy over Yoon’s remarks erupted, his spokesperson, Kim Eun-hye, responded by saying the North’s launches clearly “violate the spirit of the Sept. 19 military agreement, which aim to reduce military tensions and build trust on the Korean Peninsula.”

Kim then characterized Suh’s remarks as “defending North Korea despite it not being clear where the firing took place and where [the projectiles] landed.”

By Kwon Hyuk-chul, staff reporter

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