South Korea stopped parts of the 2018 deal with North Korea to reduce military tensions.
This happened after Pyongyang said they sent a spy satellite into space and it worked.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said that the launch put South Korea in danger.
Seoul said it will start flying surveillance planes again near the border with North Korea, even though there is an agreement not to do so.
Some experts say that these changes could make tensions worse.
Pyongyang launched a rocket on Tuesday. They said it had their Malligyong-1 spy satellite in it. They said the launch was successful.
The US and South Korea can’t tell if the launch worked or if the spy satellite is working, but they both really disapprove of it.
Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the US National Security Council, said that the decision could make the security situation in the region and beyond unstable.
North Korea is working on making a spy satellite as part of its military plan for the next five years. Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, talked about this plan in January 2021.
The technology could help North Korea watch where US and South Korean soldiers and weapons are on the Korean Peninsula, so it can see if there are any dangers coming.
Kim Jong Un watches a rocket launch from far away.
North Korea’s space agency, called the National Aerospace Technology Administration, said they launched a rocket to make their country stronger and protect themselves from their enemies’ military actions. Pyongyang said it wants to launch more spy satellites soon.
Some experts are not sure if the satellite is good enough to work well. Jang Young-geun from Korea Research Institute for National Strategy thinks the satellite’s camera probably can’t take detailed military pictures.
However, he said that having low resolution is still better than having no information at all. This is because any attack, no matter who it is aiming for, needs some information to be successful.
Ankit Panda, who knows a lot about nuclear policies, thinks that the satellite could make North Korea’s military stronger. But it could also make the situation in the Peninsula more stable.
“He said it could make Pyongyang calmer during crises. ” The country could use its satellites to check if the US and South Korea were really not increasing their troops to get ready for a big attack.
North is happy after two tries did not work.
This year, the North tried three times to launch a spy satellite into space. The first two tries in May and August didn’t work. Officials in South Korea said they think that North Korea got help from Russia in solving the problems that caused its earlier unsuccessful attempts.
When Kim Jong Un met Vladimir Putin at the Vostochny space centre in Russia’s far east in September, the Russian leader suggested he would assist Mr Kim in making satellites. The US and South Korea think that North Korea is giving weapons to Russia to use in Ukraine. They also believe that Russia might have agreed to help North Korea with their military knowledge in exchange.
But Panda said there was no proof that Pyongyang had gotten Russia’s help and used it. “North Korea tried launching a rocket for the third time. They have been working on their own space technology for a long time,” said Mr.
Jo Bee Yun, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Defence Analysis (KIDA), said that Russia didn’t have enough time to give “game-changing” technology, but they could give significant technology in the future.
Mr Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in signed a big agreement about their military in 2018. They did this to try to make their countries less tense and to stop a fight from happening.
The South Korean government recently said that the deal made it easy for them to be attacked because they couldn’t fly surveillance planes and drones near the border.
South Korea’s top leaders had a meeting very early on Wednesday, including the defense chiefs and cabinet members. Everyone agreed that the country should start watching the border again right away, and the President supports this decision.
Seoul is currently using US spy satellites to watch North Korea. But soon, they are going to launch their own satellite into space in November.
Some experts say that if the military agreement is stopped, it could make things worse and increase the chances of fights between countries.
He said that if Seoul did this, it could give them a reason to do more bad things.
But Jo Bee Yun from KIDA doesn’t think that stopping the activity would make things worse, because North Korea has been launching missiles often since 2022. “The fighting has started again. ” South Korea had to react at some point.