Seoul pivots from confrontation to engagement with Pyongyang

President Lee Jae-myung shakes hands with a soldier at Piryong Observatory in Yeoncheon, a county near the inter-Korean border in northern Gyeonggi Province, Friday. Captured from President Lee Jae-myung's Facebook

South Korea is moving away from its previous confrontational stance toward North Korea, as the Lee Jae-myung administration tries to mend relations that deteriorated under his predecessor.

In the latest development on Saturday, Lee directed all relevant government departments to devise measures to prevent and penalize the sending of leaflets critical of the North Korean regime across the inter-Korean border. This directive followed an attempt by human rights activists to launch balloons carrying anti-regime messages from Ganghwa Island, near North Korean shores, earlier that day.

Lee reaffirmed his commitment the next day to restoring communication and trust between Seoul and Pyongyang.

“The Lee Jae-myung government will cease all hostilities, resume dialogue and cooperation and restore the inter-Korean communication channel and the crisis management system to ease military tensions and create a peaceful atmosphere,” Lee said in a social media post on the 25th anniversary of the June 15 North–South Joint Declaration, which was adopted in Pyongyang following a landmark inter-Korean summit in 2000.

“We must remember the promise made 25 years ago today. We must reclaim lost time and lost peace,” he said, pledging to help build a better future where “both Koreas can coexist.”

The government held an interagency meeting on Monday to discuss preventive and punitive measures against the distribution of anti-North Korean leaflets, in accordance with Lee’s instructions. Those in attendance included officials from the Ministry of Unification, the Prime Minister’s Office, the National Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the National Police Agency.

Since taking office on June 4, the new president has signaled a clear change in policy toward North Korea, following more than five years of suspended exchanges between the two Koreas after the collapse of talks between Pyongyang and Washington in Hanoi in 2019.

Under his predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol, inter-Korean relations plunged to their lowest point in many years. The two sides engaged in a tit-for-tat balloon campaign, with South Korean activists sending anti-regime leaflets and Pyongyang responding by launching balloons loaded with cigarette butts and other trash. Meanwhile, North Korea focused on developing its nuclear and missile capabilities.

The Lee administration has made it clear that it would depart from this hardline stance. On Wednesday, it turned off loudspeakers that had been broadcasting criticism, propaganda and K-pop into the North for the past year.

In line with this shift, ruling Democratic Party of Korea lawmakers proposed easing restrictions on inter-Korean exchanges and clarifying the government’s responsibility to promote them.

Also on Wednesday, 11 lawmakers drafted a bill to remove the legal requirement for South Koreans to notify the Ministry of Unification before contacting North Koreans, arguing that current restrictions unjustly limit freedom and hinder exchanges.

A second bill, filed by 13 legislators the following day, would require the government to actively promote inter-Korean exchanges by formulating necessary policies and securing funding.

North Korea appears to have responded to South Korea’s new approach. According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pyongyang suspended its own loudspeaker broadcasts the day after Seoul halted its own.

However, some rights advocates have expressed concerns about the implications for freedom of expression and the rights of North Koreans living under the regime.

“The Constitutional Court in 2023 struck down a 2020 law that criminalized the sending of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets to North Korea, calling it an excessive restriction on free speech,” a member of a Seoul-based nongovernmental organization told The Korea Times. “I hope lawmakers will take constitutional rights and the human rights of North Koreans into account as they draft a new bill.”

Meanwhile, the Korean War Abductee’s Family Union has said that it would consider stopping its leaflet campaigns if Lee were to agree to meet with the families in person.

“Sending leaflets is the only way we can contact our kidnapped family members, yet now even that is being treated as crime," Choi Seong-ryong, head of the organization, said at a press conference held Monday outside Government Complex Seoul. “If President Lee meets with the families of abductees and offers his condolences, we will stop sending leaflets.”

The unification ministry said that it would listen to the families’ concerns. “Resolving the abduction issue requires continued dialogue, and we will pay close attention to what the families have to say," ministry spokesperson Koo Byeong-sam said during a regular briefing.