SEOUL (AFP) – The South Korean military yesterday said it had restarted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts directed at North Korea in response to Pyongyang sending hundreds of trash-carrying balloons across the border.
Seoul said it detected about 200 trash balloons sent by North Korea since Thursday, marking the eighth round of such launches by Kim Jong-un’s government since late May.
“We have repeatedly and sternly warned North Korea about their continuous release of trash-carrying balloons,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.
Following the warnings, “our military conducted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts towards the North”, it added.
The JCS said it had restarted the broadcasts at 4pm, and that it would do so “continuously” – without specifying the planned duration of the fresh broadcasts. The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
The propaganda broadcasts – a tactic which dates back to the Korean War – infuriate Pyongyang, which previously threatened artillery strikes against Seoul’s loudspeaker units.
North Korea’s balloon launches are “a clear violation of the armistice agreement and are shameful and low-level acts that pose a danger to the daily lives of our people”, the JCS said in another statement.
The anti-North broadcasts on Thursday were the first near the border since June 9, when South Korea resumed them for the first time in six years in response to Pyongyang’s trash balloon launches, a Defence Ministry spokesman told AFP.
