North Korea agreed to stop flying hundreds of balloons carrying trash and manure to South Korea, saying Sunday it launched the campaign to leave its neighbors to the south with "enough experience of how much unpleasant they feel."
The Associated Press reported that North Korea’s announcement came mere hours after South Korea said it would punish the North with an "unbearable" retaliation over its balloon activities and other provocations lately.
Last week, North Korea flew hundreds of balloons with trash and manure toward South Korea, prompting the South’s military to mobilize chemical and explosive response teams to recover objects and debris in various parts of the country.
The balloon campaign came as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged his military scientists to overcome a failed satellite launch and continue developing space-based reconnaissance capabilities. He described those efforts as crucial for countering U.S. and South Korean military activities, state media said Wednesday.
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The wire reported observers' claims that South Korea was likely going to restart front-line loudspeaker broadcasts into North Korea, criticizing the country for violating human rights while also broadcasting world news and K-pop songs.
North Korean leaders are sensitive to the broadcasts because most of the 26 million people living in the country do not have access to radio programs and foreign television.
Kim Kang II, a North Korean vice defense minister, said Sunday that the country would temporarily suspend the balloon activities, adding they were a countermeasure against the South’s leafleting campaigns.
"We made the ROK (Republic of Korea) clans get enough experience of how much unpleasant they feel and how much effort is needed to remove the scattered wastepaper," Kim said in a statement carried by state media.
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He also said if South Korean activists send more anti-Pyongyang leaflets via balloons into North Korea again, they will resume flying balloons to dump rubbish hundreds of times the amount of South Korean leaflets found in the North.
South Korea’s military said on Sunday that more than 700 balloons were found in various parts of the country, plus another nearly 260 balloons found days earlier.
Tied to the balloons, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, was manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste paper and vinyl. No dangerous substances were said to be included.
Despite the South's claims that only about 1,000 balloons were launched, North Korea's vice defense minister said 3,500 balloons were launched carrying 15 tons of waste.
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Chang Ho-jin, South Korea’s national security director, said Sunday that the government decided to take "unbearable" measures against North Korea in retaliation for balloon launches, alleged jamming of GPS navigational signals in South Korea and simulation of nuclear strikes against the South.
Experts say North Korea’s balloon campaign, reportedly the first of its kind in seven years, is meant to stoke an internal divide in South Korea over its conservative government’s tough policy on the North.
Animosity between the Koreas is at its worst level in years as the pace of both Kim's weapons demonstrations and South Korea’s combined military exercises with the U.S. and Japan have intensified since 2022.
The failed satellite launch was a setback to Kim’s plan to launch three more military spy satellites in 2024 after North Korea’s first military reconnaissance satellite was placed in orbit last November. The November launch followed two failed attempts.
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North Korea has maintained that it has the right to launch satellites and test missiles in the face of what it perceives as U.S.-led military threats. Kim has described spy satellites as crucial for monitoring U.S. and South Korean military activities and enhancing the threat posed by his nuclear-capable missiles.
"Given the fact that the security environment for our state is undergoing drastic changes owing to U.S. military maneuvers and provocations of all sorts, possessing military reconnaissance satellites presents itself as a prerequisite for our state to bolster up its self-defensive deterrent and safeguard its sovereignty and security from potential threats," Kim said.
"Although we failed to achieve the results we had hoped to get in the recent reconnaissance satellite launch, we must never feel scared or dispirited but make still greater efforts. It is natural that one learns more and makes greater progress after experiencing failure."
North Korea hasn’t commented on when it would be ready to attempt a satellite launch again, which some experts say could take months.
Kim has been boosting the visibility of his ties with Russia in recent months, highlighted by a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September as they align in the face of their separate confrontations with Washington.
Kim’s meeting with Putin was held at a spaceport in the Russian Far East and came after North Korea’s consecutive failures in its attempts to launch its first spy satellite. Putin told Russian reporters at the time that Moscow was willing to help the North build satellites.
The U.S. and South Korea have also accused North Korea of providing Russia with artillery shells, missiles and other military equipment to help prolong its fighting in Ukraine.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
