North Korea stops sending garbage balloons to South Korea

By Hyunsu Yim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea said on Sunday it would stop sending balloons carrying garbage across the border into South Korea, but said it would resume the practice if anti-North Korean leaflets were again flown across the border from the South.

South Korea has had enough experience of how unpleasant collecting garbage is and how much effort it requires after North Korea sent 15 tons of it in 3,500 balloons, the North’s deputy defense minister Kim Kang Il said in a statement carried by state media KCNA.

South Korea said it would take “unbearable” measures against North Korea for sending the garbage balloons across the border, including loud propaganda from loudspeakers directed against the North.

The statement from President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office followed a meeting of the country’s National Security Council in response to Seoul’s claims that Pyongyang had sent more than 700 balloons laden with garbage across the heavily fortified border to spite its neighbor.

The Council condemned the balloons and the simultaneous disruption of GPS reception as an “irrational act of provocation”.

A senior official in Yoon’s office told reporters that Seoul has not ruled out resuming loudspeaker blasts, which were halted in 2018 after a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The democratic South and the communist North are technically still at war, as the 1950-1953 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. Seoul is a staunch U.S. ally, whose sophisticated military regularly conducts exercises with the U.S., while Pyongyang is developing missile and nuclear technology that Seoul and Washington say violate U.N. resolutions.

North Korea said the balloons were in retaliation for a propaganda campaign by North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea, who had regularly sent inflatable balloons across the border containing anti-Pyongyang leaflets, food, medicine, money and USB sticks with K-pop music videos and dramas.

The North Korean balloons carrying garbage such as cigarette butts, cloth and paper waste, and plastic were spotted across the capital Seoul between 8 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday (from 11 a.m. GMT Saturday to 4 a.m. GMT Sunday), the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the South Korean Armed Forces said.

They said the military was monitoring the launch site and conducting aerial reconnaissance to locate and collect the balloons, which had large bags of garbage hanging from the bottom.

As local media footage shows, South Korean officials with guns apparently collected garbage from the balloons in cordoned-off areas and packed it in bags.

North Korea sent hundreds of balloons filled with garbage and fertilizer across the border on Wednesday. It called it a “gift of sincerity.” Seoul reacted angrily, calling the move suspect and dangerous.

North Korea has not commented on the balloons over the weekend.

South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik told U.S. Defense Secretary Austin Lloyd at a conference in Singapore on Sunday that the South Korean military said the balloons violated the ceasefire agreement.

The two reaffirmed a coordinated response to any North Korean threat and provocation based on the joint defense posture of the South Korean and American alliance, it said.

Emergency alerts were issued in North Gyeongsang and Gangwon provinces and some parts of Seoul on Sunday, urging people not to touch the balloons and to alert the police.

(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim; Editing by William Mallard, Michael Perry and Giles Elgood)