South Korea Moves to Revive Border Deal With North Korea Amid Rising Tensions

South Korea says it plans to bring back a key military agreement with North Korea in a bid to ease tensions that have soared over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme and its growing ties with Russia.

Marking the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, President Lee Jae-myung used a televised address on Friday to announce he would restore the September 19 Military Agreement, first signed in 2018. That deal had aimed to reduce border hostilities and build military trust between the two Koreas.

The agreement collapsed in late 2023 after Seoul partially suspended it in protest against a North Korean military satellite launch. Pyongyang then tore up the deal entirely, re-arming the Demilitarized Zone and rebuilding guard posts.

Lee’s softer approach is a sharp contrast to his predecessor, conservative president Yoon Suk-yeol, who was ousted earlier this year and jailed after briefly imposing martial law. Since winning a snap election in June, Lee has made clear he wants dialogue, not confrontation.

One of his first steps was halting the use of loudspeakers blasting K-pop and propaganda messages across the border. Earlier this month, South Korea began dismantling those sound systems, while Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff claimed the North was doing the same.

But Pyongyang has pushed back. On Thursday, Kim Yo Jong, sister of leader Kim Jong Un and a powerful political voice in her own right, accused the South of misleading its people about any supposed thaw.

The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war, decades after the 1950–53 conflict ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.