Lee Jae-myung, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, said the Comprehensive Military Agreement signed on Sept. 19, 2018, should be reinstated. (Lee Jae-myung/Facebook)
South Korea’s leading presidential candidate has pledged to restore a military deconfliction agreement with the North if elected, aiming to reduce rising tension on the Korean Peninsula.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, said the Comprehensive Military Agreement signed on Sept. 19, 2018, should be reinstated. The deal was effectively scrapped by both countries last year.
“We urgently need to ease military tensions and restore trust between the two Koreas,” he said in a recent news release.
Lee, who narrowly lost the 2022 presidential election to Yoon Suk Yeol, is considered the frontrunner in the upcoming snap election scheduled for June 3.
Recent polls show Lee leading with 47% support, followed by former Prime Minister and independent candidate Han Duck-soo with 23%; former Labor Minister and People Power Party candidate Kim Moon-soo with 13%; and Reform Party candidate Lee Jun-seok with 4%, according to a survey of 1,006 adults conducted by the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper.
Lee lost in 2022 with 47.8% of the vote to Yoon’s 48.6%, the closest presidential race in South Korean history.
Yoon was impeached in December after a failed attempt to impose martial law. He was removed from office last month by the Constitutional Court, which ruled he had violated the constitution and obstructed the legislative process. He was three years into his term.
In June 2024, Yoon had withdrawn fully from the 2018 military accord, ending a six-year ban on artillery and military flights near the North Korean border. He cited North Korea’s 2023 launch of a military satellite and its release of thousands of trash-laden balloons into South Korea as justification.
North Korea had exited the agreement in November 2023 after the South resumed limited aerial reconnaissance operations near the border.
The original agreement, signed by then-President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, aimed to reduce military hostilities and foster cooperation, including economic projects and infrastructure links between the two countries.
Some of those projects, including the rail and road connections, were destroyed by North Korea in October.
Han, a former South Korean ambassador to the United States, has also advocated for dialogue with Pyongyang. He has proposed a constitutional amendment to reduce the presidential term from five years to three.
“Han is saying he would revise our constitution because we have a congressional election in April 2028,” Kyonggi University’s Graduate School of Political Studies dean Hahm Sung Deuk said by phone Tuesday. “He would finish his three-year term before stepping down; a majority of Koreans support revising the constitution.”
