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A reconnaissance aircraft that took off from the vicinity of Seoul Air Base flies through the sky on Nov. 23 following South Korea’s announcement that it was suspending the validity of certain clauses in the comprehensive military agreement signed by the two Koreas on Sept. 19, 2018, a decision that came in response to North Korea’s launch of a military reconnaissance satellite. (Yonhap)

On Thursday, North Korea declared it was totally revoking a 2018 comprehensive military agreement with South Korea and announced it would be deploying military equipment and troops to the area around the Military Demarcation Line. The South Korean government responded by pledging “powerful retribution in the event of a North Korean provocation.”

South Korea had suspended some provisions of the same 2018 inter-Korean military agreement following North Korea’s third attempt to place a spy satellite into orbit on Tuesday evening, and now North Korea has totally scrapped the accord, raising concerns about an unintended clash between the two sides.

“From now on, our army will never be bound by the September 19 North-South Military Agreement,” the North Korean Ministry of National Defense said in a statement released on Thursday morning, referring to the 2018 agreement.

“We will immediately restore all military measures that have been halted according to the North-South military agreement,” the statement went on.

North Korea’s Defense Ministry went into more detail about its plans. “We will withdraw the military steps, taken to prevent military tension and conflict in all spheres including ground, sea and air, and deploy more powerful armed forces and new-type military hardware in the region along the Military Demarcation Line.”

The military accord in question, formally known as the “Agreement on the Implementation of the Historic Panmunjom Declaration in the Military Domain,” was signed during the inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang on Sept. 19, 2018. The agreement had established a buffer zone designed to prevent clashes by air, land or sea around the Military Demarcation Line. But after completely scrapping the pact, the North now intends to fill the area with a military presence even stronger than it was five years before.

The North Korean Defense Ministry continued: “It is the conclusion made once again that we cannot recognize any agreement with those of the ‘ROK’ who have broken the elementary faith with the partner and definite promise already made without hesitation and we must refuse to deal with them.”

ROK is the acronym for the Republic of Korea, which is South Korea’s official name.

“The most dangerous situation in the area of the military demarcation line, where the world’s most acute military confrontation lingers and any slight accidental factor may aggravate an armed conflict to an all-out war, has become irreversibly uncontrollable, due to the serious mistake made by the political and military gangsters of the ‘ROK,’” the North Korean Defense Ministry said, adding that “Those of the ‘ROK’ will be held wholly accountable in case an irretrievable clash breaks out between the North and the South.”

“If North Korea carries out a provocation on the pretext of our suspension of the Sept. 19 military agreement, we will enact retribution that is immediate, powerful, and thorough,” South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said during an appearance at the National Assembly’s National Defense Committee on Thursday.

Shin had also informed lawmakers on the committee that South Korea “will demonstrate the response capabilities of the alliance by carrying out joint exercises with the US involving a US carrier strike group that is already underway.”

South and North Korea sharply dispute which side is responsible for placing the Sept. 19 inter-Korean military accord in jeopardy.

After the North Korean Defense Ministry said in its statement that “the September 19 North-South Military Agreement has long been reduced to a mere scrap of paper owing to the intentional and provocative moves of those of the ‘ROK,’” South Korea’s Ministry of Unification released a statement of its own in which it “strongly denounced” what it characterized as “absurd claims in which the aggressor blames the victim.”

“The government has never agreed to renounce the Sept. 19 military agreement,” an official from the Unification Ministry told reporters. Given the lack of mutual consent about canceling the agreement, North Korea’s actions amount to a declaration of nullification, the official explained.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reported to the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee that North Korea’s reconnaissance satellite had successfully entered orbit and that it believed Russian assistance was behind the launch vehicle’s success.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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