SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea again launched balloons carrying trash toward South Korea on Sunday, two days after the South resumed broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda across the border in retaliation for the North’s repeated balloon campaigns, officials in Seoul said.
According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the North Korean balloons flew north of Seoul, the South Korean capital, after crossing the border.
The report says the South Korean public should be alert for falling objects and report to police and military authorities if they see balloons falling to the ground.
North Korea’s latest balloon launch threatens to heighten tensions on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea has previously warned that it would expand loudspeaker broadcasts and take other more forceful steps if North Korea continues provocations such as balloon launches.
Since late May, North Korea has launched numerous balloons to drop pieces of cloth, cigarette butts, old batteries and even fertilizer on South Korea. However, they have not caused any major damage in South Korea.
North Korea said the first balloons were launched in response to South Korean activists send political leaflets to the North via their own balloons. North Korea sees South Korean civilian activity as a major threat to its leadership, as the country bans official access to foreign news for most of its 26 million people, experts say.
In a statement Tuesday, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, warned that South Korean “scum” should be prepared to pay “a gruesome and heavy price” for the leafleting activities. She said more South Korean leaflets had been found in North Korea, raising concerns that North Korea could use physical provocations instead of balloon launches.
In response to North Korea’s balloon campaigns, South Korea responded with the suspension of a 2018 agreement to reduce tensions with North Korea, a step needed to resume propaganda broadcasts and conduct frontline live-fire military exercises in border areas. On June 9, South Korea conducted propaganda broadcasts at the border for two hours.