South Korea to partially suspend military deal with North after launch of spy satellite
Pyongyang claims success on third attempt – breaching a 2018 agreement meant to reduce tensions, says South
Tue 21 Nov 2023
South Korea has moved to partially suspend a 2018 military agreement with
North Korea, which said it had successfully launched its first military spy satellite into orbit, the Yonhap news agency reported.
“North
Korea is clearly demonstrating that it has no will to abide by the 19
September [2018] military agreement designed to reduce military tension
on the Korean Peninsula and to build trust,” the South’s prime minister,
Han Duck-soo, told an extraordinary cabinet meeting that approved
suspending the deal.
Seoul’s
national security council said the suspension would mean the
restoration of reconnaissance and surveillance operations around the
military demarcation line.
The move came after what is believed to be North Korea’s third attempt to place a spy satellite into orbit this year. The previous two failed.
Photographs
published by North Korean state media appeared to show the regime
leader, Kim Jong-un, watching the launch of a rocket.
Officials in South Korea and Japan,
which first reported the launch, could not immediately verify whether a
satellite was in orbit. Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said the US
military was assessing whether the launch was a success.
South
Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol, is in Britain for a state visit and
earlier led a meeting of the national security council with some
ministers and the national intelligence chief by video link. The
suspension of the inter-military agreement is expected to come into
effect after he gives his approval.
The 2018 pact, known as the comprehensive military agreement, was signed at a 2018 summit between the previous South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, and Kim Jong-un.
The
two sides agreed to buffer zones where live-fire drills were suspended,
as well as no-fly zones, removing some guard posts from the
demilitarised zone separating the countries, and maintaining hotlines,
among other measures.
Critics say it has limited South Korea’s ability to monitor the North’s actions around the border.
The
North’s KCNA state news agency said the Malligyong-1 satellite was
launched on a Chollima-1 rocket from the Sohae satellite launch base at
10.42pm on Tuesday and entered orbit at 10.54pm.
North Korea had notified Japan it planned to launch a satellite between Wednesday and 1 December.
Japan’s
chief cabinet secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, criticised North Korea for
conducting the launch before its window started. Over its emergency
broadcasting system, the Japanese government told people in Okinawa to
take cover inside buildings or underground. It later said the rocket
appeared to have flown over and past Okinawa towards the Pacific Ocean,
and lifted its emergency warning.
US national
security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson called the launch “a
brazen violation of multiple UN security council resolutions” and said
it “raises tensions and risks destabilising the security situation in
the region and beyond”.
Tuesday’s North Korean launch was the first since Kim met Vladimir Putin at a Russian space facility in September for a summit at which the Russian president promised to help Pyongyang build satellites.
South
Korean officials have said the latest launch most likely incorporated
technical assistance from Moscow as part of a growing partnership under
which North Korea is believed to have sent millions of artillery shells
to Russia. Russia and North Korea have denied conducting arms deals, but
are publicly promising deeper cooperation.
Some
missile experts, however, said it may be too soon for Russian technical
assistance to have been fully incorporated in the satellite or the
rocket.
“We have to see how properly this is
being operated,” said Lee Choon-geun, a rocket expert at South Korea’s
Science and Technology Policy Institute.
Reuters contributed to this report