Ruling party lawmakers called for the termination of a landmark inter-Korean military agreement on Friday, arguing the four-year-old pact hamstrings South Korea’s ability to conduct missile tests and other exercises.

Debate about whether to uphold the inter-Korean Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA) reignited in Seoul this week after a South Korean Hyunmoo-2C ballistic missile failed after launch and crashed less than half a mile (700 m) from a residential area.

“If the agreement is discarded, our military’s frontline airspace for manned and unmanned aircraft, as well as the range of training areas along both coasts, will be expanded,” said Chung Jin-suk, deputy national assembly speaker and interim leader of the People Power Party (PPP).

“This will bolster South Korea’s capabilities to surveil North Korea and increase our deterrence firepower,” he wrote on social media.

Chung also said that the 2018 agreement “must be annulled” if North Korea conducts a seventh nuclear test — a move widely anticipated by Seoul and others.

Former PPP floor leader Kim Ki-hyeon voiced similar sentiments, calling the deal “dangerous and traitorous” in a social media post Thursday.

Seoul and Pyongyang signed the agreement on Sept. 19, 2018 amid a high point in inter-Korean relations under then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in. The pact calls on both Koreas to cease “hostile activities” against each other, including military training near the inter-Korean border.

The deal established a 3-mile-long (5 km) buffer zone along the border, within which Seoul and Pyongyang agreed not to conduct large-scale field training and artillery firing drills.

It also includes a no-fly zone that extends to a maximum 25 miles (40 km) from the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) dividing the Koreas on the eastern side and 12.5 miles (20 km) on the western side.

PPP lawmaker Shin Won-sik said Thursday that the agreement makes some South Korean military activities riskier because it pushes missile launch locations closer to civilian areas.

Other ruling party lawmakers said the previous day that a different range a few miles up the coast in Goseong — shut down after the military agreement went into effect — is safer.

Opposition Democratic Party lawmakers have pushed back, emphasizing that the biggest takeaway from the failed Hyunmoo launch on Tuesday is not the demerits of the inter-Korean military deal but that the military failed to alert citizens about what happened for several hours after the missile crashed.

YOON ON THE FENCE

Unification minister Kwon Young-se also weighed in on the inter-Korean military deal on Friday, telling lawmakers at an audit hearing that scrapping the pact is a “worst-case scenario” that the administration is not currently considering.

On the campaign trail, Yoon Suk-yeol said North Korea was breaching the inter-Korean military agreement through repeated missile tests. “If I become president, I will urge North Korea to implement the agreement. If they don’t change, I will discard it,” he said last November.

Since taking office in May, Yoon has accused North Korea of breaching the “spirit” or “objective” of the agreement multiple times. In response to a media query on Friday, Yoon said it was “difficult” to say whether he would scrap the deal in the event of a North Korean nuclear test. He added that Seoul is preparing various “step-by-step” measures to respond to potential DPRK nuclear threats.

South Korea’s official position is that North Korea violated the agreement twice: When Kim Jong Un ordered artillery drills near the maritime border in Nov. 2019, and when North Korean soldiers fired at a ROK guard post at the border in May 2020.

Edited by Arius Derr