ALBAWABA - The South Korean military announced on Monday that hundreds of trash-carrying balloons had been sent by North Korea toward Seoul, after a threat by Kim Jong Un's sister to take more action if the South continues its "psychological warfare".
North Korea has been sending hundreds of balloons into the South in recent weeks, carrying rubbish like toilet paper and cigarette butts.
It claims this is in reprisal for activists in the South floating balloons bearing pro-Pyongyang propaganda northward, which Seoul is legally unable to halt.
In reaction to Pyongyang's balloon launches, the South Korean government this month completely halted a 2018 military agreement aimed at easing tensions and resumed loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border. This infuriated Pyongyang, which warned Seoul was causing "a new crisis".
In a statement issued early on Monday, Kim Yo Jong, a prominent government spokesperson, and Kim's sister stated that South Korea would "struggle with the intense shame of having to pick up the waste paper on a daily basis".
She denounced the activists' pamphlets as "psychological warfare" in a statement cited by the official Korean Central News Agency. She also threatened to retaliate if Seoul did not halt them and cease the loudspeaker blasts.
"If the ROK simultaneously carries out the leaflet scattering and loudspeaker broadcasting provocation over the border, it will undoubtedly witness the new counteraction of the DPRK," she stated.
Midway through May, activists in the South, including North Korean defectors, began sending dozens of messages northward with anti-Kim propaganda and flash drives filled with K-pop music. This was the beginning of the tit-for-tat balloon blitz.
