South Korea yesterday said it would soon take “unbearable” retaliatory steps against North Korea over its launch of trash-carrying balloons across the border and other provocations.
In the past week, North Korea floated hundreds of huge balloons to dump garbage on South Korea, simulated nuclear strikes against its neighbor and allegedly jammed GPS navigation signals in the South in an escalation of animosities between the rivals.
South Korean National Security Office Director Chang Ho-jin said that top officials at an emergency meeting decided to take “unbearable” measures against North Korea in response to its recent series of provocative acts.
Photo: AP
Chang called the North’s balloon campaign and its alleged GPS signal jamming “absurd, irrational acts of provocation that a normal country can’t imagine.”
He said that North Korea aimed to cause “public anxieties and chaos” in South Korea.
South Korean officials did not say what retaliatory steps they would take, but many observers said Seoul would likely resume frontline loudspeaker broadcasts into North Korea that include criticism of its abysmal human rights situation, world news and K-pop songs.
North Korea is extremely sensitive to such broadcasts because most of its 26 million people have no official access to foreign TV and radio programs.
Earlier yesterday, South Korea’s military said that more than 700 balloons flown from North Korea were also discovered in different areas of South Korea.
Tied to the balloons were scraps of cloth, cigarette butts, waste paper and vinyl, but no dangerous substances, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
It was North Korea’s second balloon activity in less than a week.
Between Tuesday and Wednesday, South Korean officials said they had found about 260 North Korean balloons carrying trash and manure.
There have been no reports of major damage in South Korea.
North Korea said its balloon floating was in reaction to South Korean activists flying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border using balloons.
North Korea often responds with fury to balloons from South Korea. In 2020, North Korea exploded an empty, South Korean-built liaison office in the North in anger over the South Korean balloon activities.
Experts say North Korea’s balloon campaign, reportedly the first of its kind in seven years, is meant to stoke an internal divide in South Korea over its conservative government’s tough policy on the North. They say North Korea is also expected to further ramp up tensions ahead of the US presidential election in November.
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