After North Korea launched trash-carrying balloons across the border, South Korea on Sunday said it’ll take “unbearable” retaliatory steps against Kim Jong Un soon.
In the past week, North Korea has floated hundreds of huge balloons to dump rubbish on South Korea.
In an escalation of animosities between the neighbours, North Korea also simulated nuclear strikes against South and allegedly jammed GPS navigation signals.
Top officials at an emergency meeting decided to take “unbearable” measures against North Korea, South Korea’s national security director Chang Ho-jin said on Sunday in response to its recent series of provocative acts.
Chang called North’s trash balloon campaign and its alleged GPS signal jamming “absurd, irrational acts of provocation” that a “normal country” can’t imagine.
He also accused North of trying to cause “public anxieties and chaos” in South Korea.
However, South Korea didn’t say what retaliatory steps they would take but observers have said the country will likely resume front-line loudspeaker broadcasts into North Korea. These would include criticism of North Korea’s 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 on Sunday, South Korea’s military said that over 700 balloons flown from North Korea were additionally discovered in various parts of the country. Attached to the balloons were cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste paper, and vinyl; however, the Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that there were no hazardous substances.
North Korea engaged in its second balloon operation within a week. South Korean authorities reported discovering approximately 260 balloons from North Korea, laden with garbage and manure, between Tuesday and Wednesday.
There have been no reports of major damage in South Korea.
North Korea said its trash balloon is aa reaction to South Korean activists flying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets via their own balloons across the border.
North Korea frequently reacts with intense anger to balloon launches from South Korea. In 2020, North Korea detonated a vacant liaison office, constructed by South Korea, on its territory as a response to the balloon campaigns from the South.
(With AP inputs)
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