North Korea called its campaign a “countermeasure” against propaganda leaflets brought into the country by South Korean activists.
North Korea says it will stop sending garbage-filled balloons across the border into South Korea, saying its campaign has been an effective countermeasure against propaganda sent by anti-regime activists in the neighboring country.
Since Tuesday, North Korea floated hundreds of balloons with garbage bags containing everything from cigarette butts to pieces of cardboard and plastic, Seoul's military said on Sunday, threatening retaliation if the provocations do not stop.
Hours later, North Korea said it would halt the campaign.
“We made the Republic of Korea [Republic of Korea] “The clans have enough experience of how unpleasant they feel and how much effort it takes to eliminate wasted paper,” Kim Kang Il, North Korea's vice defense minister, said in a statement carried by state media.
However, he warned that if South Korean activists again fly anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets in balloons, North Korea will resume flying its own balloons to dump trash hundreds of times greater than the amount of South Korean leaflets found in the North.
'Lower class'
South Korea has called the balloons and simultaneous jamming of its nuclear-armed neighbor's GPS “irrational” and “low class.” But unlike the spate of recent ballistic missile launches, the pushback campaign does not violate United Nations sanctions against Kim Jong Un's isolated regime.
Seoul warned it would take strong countermeasures unless Pyongyang suspended the balloon bombing, saying it ran counter to the armistice agreement that ended hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War.
Southern activists have also floated their own balloons over the border, filled with leaflets and sometimes cash, rice or USB drives loaded with K-dramas.
Earlier this week, Pyongyang described its “sincere gifts” as retaliation for propaganda-laden balloons sent to North Korea.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the balloons had been landing in northern provinces, including the capital Seoul and the adjacent Gyeonggi area, which together are home to nearly half of South Korea's population.
The latest batch of balloons were filled with “debris such as cigarette butts, waste paper, pieces of cloth and plastic,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, adding that military and police officers were collecting them.
“Our military is carrying out surveillance and reconnaissance from the balloon launch points, tracking them through aerial reconnaissance and collecting fallen debris, prioritizing public safety,” he said.
balloon wars
South Korea's National Security Council met on Sunday and a presidential official said Seoul would not rule out responding to the balloons by resuming loudspeaker propaganda campaigns along the border with North Korea.
In the past, South Korea has transmitted anti-Kim propaganda to the North, angering Pyongyang.
“If Seoul decides to resume anti-North broadcasts through loudspeakers along the border, something Pyongyang doesn't like as much as anti-Kim balloons, it could lead to a limited armed conflict along the border areas. like in the West Sea,” said Cheong Seong-Chang, director of Korean Peninsula strategy at the Sejong Institute.
In 2018, during a period of improving inter-Korean relations, both leaders agreed to “completely cease all hostile acts toward each other in all areas,” including the distribution of leaflets.
South Korea's parliament passed a law in 2020 criminalizing sending leaflets to the North, but the law, which did not deter activists, was repealed last year as a violation of freedom of expression.
Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong, one of Pyongyang's key spokespeople, mocked South Korea for complaining about the balloons this week, saying the North Koreans were simply exercising their freedom of speech.
