SEOUL, June 27 (UPI) -- South Korea's Unification Ministry on Friday asked North Korea to give advance notice before releasing water from a dam across the border on the Imjin River, citing safety concerns for residents living in nearby areas.
"We request that North Korea notify us in advance of dam discharges to prevent flood damage in the border area during the rainy season on humanitarian grounds," ministry spokeswoman Chang Yoon-jeong said at a press briefing. "Joint response to natural disasters is a humanitarian issue, and the South and North have agreed several times to cooperate to prevent flooding in the Imjin River."
Chang said that the dam issue is directly related to the life and safety of residents in border areas. She noted that an unannounced discharge from the North's Hwanggang Dam in September 2009 led to damage that killed six South Korean citizens.
The following month, North Korea agreed to provide prior notice before discharging water. Pyongyang sent notices on a handful of occasions in 2010 and 2013, but has not done so since.
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The North cut off communications with the South in April 2023, and Chang said sending a message through a press briefing was a form of "indirect communication."
Recently elected President Lee Jae-myung has said he aims to improve frayed inter-Korean relations. On Wednesday, he called for lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula as both countries commemorated the 75th anniversary of the start of the Korean War.
"The most certain form of security is a state where there is no need to fight -- in other words, creating peace," he wrote in a social media post. "The era of relying solely on military power to protect the country is over. What matters more than winning a war is preventing one."
He has vowed to restore a military pact aimed at defusing military tensions along the border and reestablish a communications hotline with Seoul's recalcitrant neighbor.
Earlier this month, Lee ordered the suspension of propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts across the DMZ to North Korea in a bid to reduce tensions with Pyongyang.
While requesting advance notice on Friday, the ministry did not mention the North's most recent suspected dam discharge.
Seoul's Environment Ministry warned Wednesday that the water level near Pilseung Bridge on the Imjin River, just south of the inter-Korean border, had risen to 3.2 feet -- the threshold for evacuating visitors in the area. The ministry said it believed the result was due to a discharge from the Hwanggang Dam.
As of Friday morning at 8 a.m., the water level at Pilseung Bridge stood at 2.5 feet, the Unification Ministry's Chang said.
