The Ministry of National Defense has renamed the North Korea Policy Division under the Defense Policy Office to the North Korea Strategy Division. It plans to develop an independent sanctions strategy against North Korea and tasks related to the 9/19 Inter-Korean Military Agreement with reduced inter-Korean talks and exchange cooperation.
On the 11th, the Ministry of National Defense announced the partial amendment of the Enforcement Rules of the Ministry of National Defense and its subordinate institutions from the 9th to the 16th.
After being renamed the North Korea Strategy Division, the ministry established the “formulation of sanctions strategy against North Korea and task coordination and control”, which was not in the original North Korea Policy Division, as one of its missions.
This is interpreted as an intention to integrate sanction-related tasks scattered across various organizations while identifying necessary military sanctions against North Korea from the Ministry of National Defense’s perspective.
Among the duties of the original North Korea Policy Division, “maintenance and compliance with military agreements between the South and North” will be removed as it changes to the North Korea Strategy Division.
This is a measure taken following the government’s decision last month to suspend all effects of the 9/19 agreement in response to North Korea’s complex provocations such as the spread of waste balloons and GPS signal interference.
Regarding the inter-Korean military talks, “negotiation strategy and countermeasure formulation and conference operation,” and “representative and performer task performance and support and management of the conference delegation” have been removed from the main duties, leaving only “coordination and control of operations and related tasks.”
The decision reflects the decreased need to maintain military talks as a major task since North Korea has declared the inter-Korean relationship as “two hostile countries at war” and military talks are not being held.
The Ministry of National Defense explained, “To effectively respond to North Korea’s strategic changes, we will reorganize, implement, and control strategies against North Korea, and integrate or rearrange past duties such as inter-Korean talks and exchange cooperation.”
The main tasks of the North Korea Strategy Division include:
- Matters related to the government’s North Korea and unification policies in the military field
- Analysis and evaluation of North Korea internally and externally along with South Korean policies and establishment, implementation, and control of policies against North Korea
- Preparations for sudden incidents in North Korea and related military integration tasks
- Tasks related to the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the area around the West Sea islands, and the neutral waters around the Han River estuary
- Support for the government’s policy on the transition to a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, etc.
The Ministry of National Defense will rename the International Peace Cooperation Division to the International Cooperation Division, and the Multilateral Security Policy Division to the Indo-Pacific Policy Division.
A military official stated, “The International Peace Cooperation Division is changing its name to encompass the current international peacekeeping activities and multinational military activities,” adding, “The Indo-Pacific Policy Division is changing to ensure the uniformity of names with the U.S., Northeast Asia, and Middle East Africa Policy Divisions, and to explicitly express that it is a department dedicated to the Indo-Pacific region.”
