South Korea said on Sunday it would take “unendurable” measures against North Korea for sending trash balloons over the border, which could include blaring propaganda from loudspeakers back at the North.
The announcement from President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office followed a meeting by his National Security Council on a response to what Seoul said were more than 700 balloons carrying trash that Pyongyang sent over the heavily fortified border to rile its rival neighbour. The council condemned the balloons and GPS jamming as an “irrational act of provocation”.
Seoul did not rule out resuming the loudspeaker blasts, which it stopped in 2018 after a rare summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a senior official at Yoon’s office told reporters.
The democratic South and the communist North technically remain at war since the 1950-1953 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. Seoul is a firm US ally whose sophisticated military regularly holds drills with the US, while Pyongyang is developing missile and nuclear technology that Seoul and Washington say violates UN resolutions.
North Korea has said its balloons were in retaliation for a propaganda campaign by North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea, who regularly send inflatables containing anti-Pyongyang leaflets, food, medicine, money and USB sticks loaded with K-pop music videos and dramas across the border.—Agencies
