South Korea’s unification ministry has welcomed a new law granting police the authority to actively block activists from floating propaganda leaflets toward North Korea, calling the decision “a stepping stone toward restoring inter-Korean relations.”

“The era of anti-North Korea leaflets has effectively come to an end,” a unification ministry spokesman said during a press briefing in Seoul on Monday, following the National Assembly’s passage of the Police Officers’ Duties Execution Act the previous day.

The act allows police officers to block or restrain people from sending propaganda leaflets toward the north from border areas.

Activists in South Korea, some of