The presidential office has approved the inter-Korean agreement made during the third Moon-Kim summit last month, during its weekly Cabinet meeting this morning.
During the speech, President Moon said, “the ratification will help catalyze the process of complete denuclearization by bettering inter-Korean relations and easing military tensions on the Korean Peninsula”. He added that the ratification of the inter-Korean agreement will first and foremost benefit residents living near the border area of the two Koreas, as they had been disadvantaged the most by having to put up with military tensions near their homes.
As the agreement made last month is designed to carry out April’s Panmunjeom Declaration the parliamentary approval of the broader Panmunjeom deal would cover all subsidiary agreements including economic and humanitarian cooperation and exchanges between the two sides.
On a related note, starting from the first of November, North Korea is set to halt all forms of live-fire artillery drills and close gun ports along the Northern Limit Line, the de facto sea border between the two Koreas.
Such measures come as South and North Korea agreed to establish maritime buffer zones, in accordance with the military accord the two sides signed last month in Pyeongyang.
Along its western coast, the North has some one-thousand gun ports and numerous artilleries with a maximum range of 27 kilometers.
After the two Koreas held forestry talks on Monday at the recently-opened inter-Korean liaison office in Gaeseong, South and North Korea have agreed to jointly tackle pine tree pests as well as other tree diseases through March next year, as part of efforts to increase forestry cooperation.
South Korea will provide the North with the necessary pesticides in November.
According to a joint press release, the two sides decided to periodically modernize North Korea's tree nurseries, and complete ten of them by the end of the year.
To realize that, South Koreans will conduct field studies in the North.
They also agreed to boost joint projects related to the prevention of forest fires and the protection of local ecosystems.
The European Union reaffirmed that pressure on North Korea will remain in place until a denuclearization deal is done.
This is according to the EU's Foreign Affairs and Security Policy team on Monday, in a reply to a question from VOA on whether the sanctions may be used as leverage to achieve Pyeongyang's denuclearization.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Russian radio station on Monday, White House National Security Advisor John Bolton said that U.S. President Donald Trump will probably meet with his North Korean Counterpart Kim Jong-un again 'after the first of the year'.
Bolton added that President Trump is determined to pursue direct negotiations with the North Korean leader and that the president is going to do everything he can to get Pyeongyang to keep its denuclearization commitment promised in their first summit back in June.
Source: Arirang NEws
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