North Korea has agreed to stop sending hundreds of balloons loaded with trash and fertiliser towards South Korea, saying Sunday it had launched a campaign to make its southern neighbour “experience fully how much discomfort it can cause”.
The Associated Press reported that North Korea’s announcement came just hours after South Korea said it would punish North Korea with “unbearable” retaliatory measures over its recent balloon activities and other provocative actions.
Last week, North Korea launched hundreds of balloons loaded with garbage and fertilizer toward South Korea, prompting the South Korean military to mobilize chemical and explosive response teams to remove the objects and debris across the country.
The balloon mission came as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged military scientists to continue developing space reconnaissance capabilities after a failed satellite launch, saying such efforts were crucial to counter U.S. and South Korean military activity, state media reported Wednesday.
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Balloons are seen tied to garbage believed to have been sent from North Korea in South Chungcheong province, South Korea, on May 29, 2024. (South Korean Presidential Office via AP/Fox News Digital)
The agency quoted observers as saying South Korea was likely to resume frontline loudspeaker broadcasts into North Korea, broadcasting world news and K-pop songs while also denouncing the country’s human rights violations.
North Korea’s leaders are sensitive about such broadcasts because most of the country’s 26 million people cannot access radio or foreign television.
North Korea’s Vice Defense Minister Kim Kang-ri said on Sunday that the country would temporarily halt its balloon activities, adding that it was a countermeasure to South Korea’s leaflet-dropping campaign.
“We have given the Korean clans a full experience of how much discomfort they can endure and how much effort it takes to clean up the scattered paper waste,” Kim said in a statement carried by state media.
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File images of a North Korean missile launch are shown on a television screen during a news program at Seoul Station in Seoul, South Korea, May 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Yong-jun)
He also said that if South Korean activists again use balloons to drop anti-Pyongyang leaflets into North Korea, he would resume sending balloons to dump hundreds of times the amount of garbage for every South Korean leaflet found in North Korea.
South Korea’s military said on Sunday that more than 700 balloons had been found across the country, with about 260 more discovered a few days earlier.
According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the balloons contained fertilizer, cigarette butts, rags, waste paper and plastic, but no hazardous materials.
While South Korea claims only about 1,000 balloons were launched, North Korea’s vice defense minister said 3,500 balloons containing 15 tonnes of waste had been launched.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greets attendees in Pyongyang on September 10, 2023. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Agency via Associated Press)
South Korea’s National Security Advisor Jang Ho-jin said Sunday the government had decided to take “unbearable” measures against North Korea in retaliation for its balloon launches, alleged jamming of GPS navigation signals in South Korea and mock nuclear attack tests against South Korea.
Experts say North Korea’s balloon campaign, reportedly the first in seven years, is aimed at fuelling rifts in South Korea over the conservative government’s hardline policy towards North Korea.
Since 2022, Kim Jong Un’s weapons displays and the pace of joint military drills between South Korea, the United States and Japan have intensified, bringing hostility between the two Koreas to its worst level in years.
After North Korea’s first military spy satellite went into orbit last November, the failed launch hampers Kim’s plans to launch three more military spy satellites in 2024. The November launch followed two previous failures.
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Kim Jong-un (Korean Central News Agency/Korean News Agency via The Associated Press/File)
North Korea has long maintained it has the right to launch satellites and test missiles in the face of U.S.-led military threats. Kim Jong Un has said spy satellites are essential for monitoring U.S. and South Korean military activity and pose a growing threat from its nuclear-capable missiles.
“Given the current situation in which our country’s security environment is changing dramatically due to U.S. military actions and all kinds of provocations, possessing military reconnaissance satellites is a prerequisite for our country to strengthen its defensive deterrent and protect its sovereignty and security from potential threats,” Kim said.
“Although we did not achieve the results we had hoped for from this reconnaissance satellite launch, we must never be afraid or discouraged, but rather work harder. It is only natural that we can learn more by experiencing failure and achieve greater progress.”
North Korea has not commented on when it will be ready to try to launch a satellite again, but some experts say that could be several months.
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Kim Jong Un has sought to strengthen ties with Russia in recent months, most notably holding a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September as the two countries aligned over their confrontation with Washington.
The meeting between Kim and Putin took place at a spaceport in Russia’s Far East, after North Korea’s first failed attempts to launch its first spy satellite, with Putin telling Russian reporters at the time that Moscow was ready to help North Korea build one.
The United States and South Korea also accuse North Korea of providing Russia with military equipment such as artillery shells and missiles to prolong the fighting in Ukraine.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
