The move comes in retaliation for North Korea's continued campaigns of dropping trash from balloons into the South.
South Korea says it will restart broadcasts of anti-North Korean propaganda over loudspeakers in border areas in response to North Korea's continued campaigns to drop trash from balloons into the South.
Following an emergency security meeting led by South Korea's national security director Chang Ho-jin, officials decided to install and start loudspeaker broadcasts in border areas, Seoul's presidential office said in a statement Sunday. .
The move is sure to anger North Korea and potentially prompt it to take retaliatory military measures.
With loudspeakers, South Korea can blast anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, K-pop songs and outside news across the rivals' heavily armed border. North Korea is extremely sensitive to such broadcasts because it fears they could demoralize frontline troops and residents and eventually weaken leader Kim Jong Un's grip on power, analysts say.
In 2015, when South Korea restarted loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in 11 years, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border, prompting South Korea to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No victims were reported.
Chang and other South Korean security officials rebuked Pyongyang for attempting to cause “anxiety and disruption” in South Korea and stressed that North Korea would be “solely responsible” for any future escalation of tensions between the Koreas.
Over the weekend, North Korea launched hundreds of garbage balloons into South Korea in its third such campaign since late May, the South's military said, just days after South Korean activists floated their balloons to scatter propaganda leaflets in the North.
North Korea has so far sent more than 1,000 balloons to drop tons of garbage and manure on the South in retaliation against South Korea's civilian leaflet distribution campaigns, raising tensions between rivals divided by war in amid a diplomatic stalemate over the North's nuclear ambitions.
The resumption of South Korean loudspeaker broadcasts has been widely anticipated since last week, when South Korea suspended a 2018 tension-relief agreement with North Korea. The move allowed the South to resume propaganda campaigns and possibly restart live-fire military exercises in border areas.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected that the North launched about 330 balloons toward the South since Saturday night and that about 80 were found in South Korean territory as of Sunday morning. The military said winds were blowing east Saturday night, possibly causing many balloons to float away from South Korean territory.
The South's military said the balloons that landed dropped garbage, including plastic and paper waste, but no dangerous substances were discovered.
The army, which has mobilized rapid chemical response and explosives removal units to recover the North Korean balloons and materials, warned the public to be careful with falling objects and not to touch the balloons found on the ground, but rather to report to the police or military authorities.
Saturday's balloon launches by North Korea were the third of their kind since May 28. In North Korea's two previous rounds of balloon activities, South Korean authorities discovered about 1,000 balloons tied to vinyl bags containing dung, cigarette butts, pieces of cloth and debris. batteries and used paper. Some were burst and scattered on roads, residential areas and schools.
No highly hazardous materials were found and no serious damage has been reported.
