Soldiers point a mine detector at the remains of a North Korean filthy balloon that fell in front of the Incheon Air Defense Center in Jung-gu, Incheon, South Korea, on Nov. 2. Yonhap

The South Korean government announced on June 3 that it would suspend the September 19 inter-Korean military agreement signed in 2018 “until mutual trust between the two Koreas is restored.” The move comes in response to North Korea's continued sending of trash-filled balloons to South Korea that began on May 28. The presidential office said in a working-level coordination meeting of the National Security Council (NSC), “The September 19 military agreement, which has become nominal, is causing many problems in our military's readiness posture." The bill will be submitted to the Cabinet meeting on May 4. Earlier on June 2, the North said it would stop dumping trash balloons unless the South did it first, saying the South had “had enough experience of how dirty it feels and labor-intensive to pick up the trash.”

The government's decision to suspend the full effectiveness of the September 19 military agreement is a measure that followed its consideration to resume loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts against North Korea. The move came after conservatives criticized the government for failing to prevent North Korea's balloons from crossing the Military Demarcation Line. There is no doubt that North Korea's behavior was a cheap and eerie provocation. However, it is hard to agree that it is appropriate for the South to respond by suspending the validity of the military agreement. Although the September 19 military agreement became nominal due to North Korea's “declaration of abolition” after the South's “partial suspension” last year, it is a different story to completely remove the shackles that controlled the conflict between the two Koreas.

The fact that North Korea’s trash balloons crossed into the South unchecked is not because the September 19 military agreement constrained the South Korean military's response. The military could have shot down the balloons to prevent them from crossing. However, this would have been an act of belligerence that would have opened fire on North Korean territory, and the unidentified contents could have exploded in mid-air and spread over a large area, so it was decided that it was safest to drop and collect them.

The direct reason for the balloons’ crossing over to South Korea is that it first sent balloons with leaflets to the North. The North Korean human rights activist group sent 300,000 propaganda leaflets to North Korea on May 10. The North Korean authorities, like their South Korean counterparts, have blocked access to the balloons and the military has been collecting them one by one.

If the government cares about the lives and safety of its citizens, it should stop allowing private organizations to send propaganda leaflets to North Korea. The group is planning to send another 200,000 leaflets north again on June 6. The Yun Suk-yeol government has been turning a blind eye to distributing leaflets to North Korea after the Constitutional Court ruled that the Inter-Korean Relations Development Act, which banned the sending of leaflets to North Korea, was unconstitutional in September last year. The "freedom of expression" of North Korean human rights activists should be respected, but if it is clear that it will lead to a threat to the lives and safety of the people, the government should intervene.