SEOUL: North Korea said on Sunday it would stop sending balloons carrying trash over the border to South Korea. However, it vowed to resume the practice if anti-North Korean leaflets are flown over again from the South.
North Korea had sent 3500 balloons carrying 15 tons of trash to the south, said vice-minister of defence Kim Kang Il.
The balloons — carrying garbage including cigarette butts, cloth, paper waste and plastic –were found across Seoul from 8 p.m. on Saturday to 1 p.m. on Sunday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
They said the military was conducting aerial reconnaissance to track down and collect the balloons, which have large bags of trash suspended beneath them.
South Korean officers with rifles were picking up and bagging what appeared to be trash from the balloons in cordoned-off areas, local media footage showed.
Earlier, North Korea on Wednesday sent hundreds of balloons carrying trash and what was labelled as manure across the border as what it called “gifts of sincerity”. Seoul responded angrily, calling the move base and dangerous.
A furious South Korea said it would take “unendurable” counter- measures against the North.
This could include blaring propaganda from loudspeakers directed at the North, said President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office. This had been stopped after a 2018 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Yoon convened his National Security Council on how to respond to the North’s provocations. The meeting condemned the balloons and simultaneous GPS jamming as an “irrational act of provocation”.
The democratic South and the communist North remain technically at war since the 1950-1953 Korean War ended in an armistice. Seoul is a firm U.S. ally whose sophisticated military regularly holds drills with the U.S.. Pyongyang is developing missile and nuclear technology that Seoul and Washington say violates U.N. resolutions.
North Korea said the balloons were in retaliation for a propaganda campaign by North Korean defectors and activists in the South. These activists regularly send inflatables containing anti-Pyongyang leaflets, food, medicine, money and USB sticks loaded with K-pop music videos and dramas across the border.
South Korean Defence Minister Shin Won-sik told U.S. Defense Secretary Austin Lloyd at a conference in Singapore on Sunday that the balloons violated the armistice agreement, according to South Korea’s military.
The two reaffirmed a coordinated response to any North Korean threats and provocations based on the South Korea-U.S. alliance’s combined defence posture, it said.
Emergency alerts were issued in North Gyeongsang and Gangwon provinces and some parts of Seoul on Sunday, urging people not to touch the balloons and to alert police.
(REUTERS)
