North Korea sends more balloons as Kim’s sister warns of ‘new counteraction’
SEOUL: North Korea sent hundreds more trash-carrying balloons over the border, Seoul’s military said on Monday (Jun 10), after Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister warned of further responses if the South keeps up its “psychological warfare”.
In recent weeks, North Korea has sent hundreds of balloons into the South, carrying trash like cigarette butts and toilet paper, in what it calls retaliation for balloons laden with anti-Pyongyang propaganda floated northwards by activists in the South, which Seoul legally cannot stop.
The South Korean government this month fully suspended a 2018 tension-reducing military deal and restarted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border in response to Pyongyang’s balloons, infuriating the North which warned Seoul was creating “a new crisis”.
Kim’s sister and key government spokeswoman Kim Yo Jong said in a statement released early Monday that South Korea would “suffer a bitter embarrassment of picking up waste paper without rest and it will be its daily work”.
In the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, she slammed the activists’ leaflets as “psychological warfare” and warned that unless Seoul stopped them and called off the loudspeaker broadcasts, the North would hit back.
“If the Republic of Korea simultaneously carries out the leaflet scattering and loudspeaker broadcasting provocation over the border, it will undoubtedly witness the new counteraction of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” she said, referring to both countries by their official names.
Seoul’s military said the North had sent around 310 trash-carrying balloons overnight, with no more detected in the air by early Monday, the Yonhap news agency reported.
“The latest batch of waste-loaded balloons sent late Sunday contained scrap paper and plastic, with no toxic material detected so far,” Yonhap said, citing the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
