South Korea’s military reported on Saturday that North Korea launched another salvo of trash-filled balloons aimed at Seoul, as the two countries continue to engage in provocation and propaganda campaigns against one another.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported on Saturday that the North has launched more than 900 trash balloons over the past three days, including more than 190 late Friday. About 100 of those balloons have already landed, mostly in Seoul and northern Gyeonggi province, the statement said.
Military officials said that the bags attached to the balloons contained “mostly paper and plastic waste”, adding that the bags did not pose a safety threat to anyone else.
Almost 5,000 trash-filled balloons have been sent south by North Korea since May, allegedly as a retaliatory act against South Korean activists who launched propaganda balloons northward.
Due to Pyongyang’s response, Seoul has suspended a military agreement that was supposed to reduce tension and has recommenced some propaganda broadcasts from loudspeakers along the border in response.
The balloon barrages, according to professor Leif-Eric Easley, were viewed as an ineffective propaganda attack by North Korea by a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
It is Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as well as one of the regime’s chief political spokespeople, who “may think that trash balloons exacerbate political divisions in South Korea, but they do more harm to North Korea’s international image”, according to Easley.
It has been reported that residents in the Southern part of the country are “anxious about the requisite clean-up operations and worried about potential escalation”, he said.
“In order to overcome the current impasse, Pyongyang needs to restart diplomacy with Seoul, but this will only happen if South Korean civic groups opt to abstain from launching balloons on their own accord.”
Fumio Kishida, Japan’s outgoing prime minister, met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday during a visit to Seoul during which he held a two-day summit with his former ally, South Korean Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
During their discussion, the two discussed how important it was for Korea and Japan, as well as the United States, to work together in order to deal with the North Korean nuclear issue.
It was recently announced that the North Koreans would deploy 250 ballistic missile launchers to their southern border next year, marking one of the lowest points in the relations between the two Koreas in years.
Timenews1 provided that news.
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