After launches of manure-laden balloons from the North, South Korea suspended a major peace agreement signed in 2018 that includes a halt to some military exercises around one of the most heavily guarded and militarized borders in the world .

Seoul has announced that it will restore all border military activities limited by the tension-reduction pact signed in 2018 with Pyongyang.

“This measure is returning all military activities limited” by the 2018 pact to normal , the Defense Ministry said in a statement, promising to take “all possible measures” to protect the lives and safety of the South Korean people.

“All responsibility for this situation falls on the North Korean regime, and if the North attempts to organize further provocations, our military will react severely based on a firm combined defense posture between South Korea and the US ,” the ministry warned.

The suspension will also allow Seoul to restart loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts to the North . In this regard, Joint Staff Command spokesman Lee Sung-jun said that «the fixed speakers must be connected to power and their installation could take up to a few days. Operations on mobile speakers can be performed immediately." Loudspeakers used to broadcast heavy criticism of the hermit country's human rights abuses, alongside news stories and K-pop songs, prompting angry responses from Pyongyang.

Lee declined to elaborate on what measures the military might take after the pact is suspended, but noted that everything would depend on North Korea's actions: «There are things we can do immediately and we could make them public, many of which could be seen as largely dependent on North Korea."

The 2018 agreement called for the creation of buffer zones along the border to suspend large-scale military exercises, as well as a ban on "hostile" acts between the two Koreas that limited loudspeaker broadcasts.

Kim's "dirty war", which decided to launch hundreds of balloons loaded with rubbish and manure, was a response to the propaganda leaflets that Seoul made on the border .

(Unioneonline/L)

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