The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Kim Yo Jong, promised on Sunday to retaliate against what she described as a new leaflet campaign from South Korea, indicating that North Korea will soon resume sending garbage balloons across the border.
Since the end of May, North Korea has been sending balloons filled with old paper, scraps of cloth, cigarette butts, and even manure to South Korea, claiming it is in response to leaflets sent over the border by South Korean activists.
No hazardous materials have been found in the garbage sent by North Korea. In response, South Korea suspended the 2018 tension-reduction agreement with North Korea and resumed shooting exercises in border areas.
In a statement carried by state media, Kim Yo Jong said that “dirty leaflets and items from the (South Korean) scum” were again found on Sunday morning at border and other areas of North Korea.
“Despite repeated warnings (from North Korea), the (South Korean) scum do not stop their primitive and filthy games,” she said, noting that Pyongyang had previously implemented countermeasures.
North Korea last sent balloons with waste to South Korea at the end of June. It is not yet known which activists in South Korea recently sent balloons to North Korea.
Groups led by North Korean defectors have for years sent large balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets, USB drives with K-pop songs and South Korean dramas, as well as United States (U.S.) dollars towards North Korea.
Experts say that Pyongyang views these balloon campaigns as a serious provocation that could threaten the leadership in North Korea, which bans access to foreign news for most of its 26 million residents.
On June 9th, South Korea redeployed giant speakers along the border for the first time in six years and resumed broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda programs.
South Korean officials say they do not prevent activists from sending leaflets to North Korea, in accordance with a 2023 Constitutional Court ruling that overturned a controversial law criminalizing such leaflets, on the grounds that it violated freedom of speech, RSE writes.
E.Dz.
