Dispute between North and South Korea

South Korea accuses North Korea of ​​provocation by sending balloons producing waste across the border. Is South Korea's military therefore resuming its loudspeaker propaganda at the border?

South Korea has urgently warned North Korea against sending more balloons filled with garbage across the border. South Korea's General Staff on Sunday accused North Korea of ​​not only sending garbage balloons in droves since Saturday evening, but also of carrying out jamming attacks on the GPS satellite navigation system for the fifth day in a row.

These are “irrational provocations that no normal state can afford,” said National Security Advisor Chang Ho Jin in Seoul. At a meeting of the body's standing committee, participants agreed to “initiate measures that are intolerable for North Korea.” What exactly the measures will look like is still unclear.

Meanwhile, according to media reports, North Korea announced that it would stop sending balloons filled with garbage for the time being. At the same time, however, Vice Defense Minister Kim Kang Il threatened in a statement published by state media that the action would continue if more anti-North Korean leaflets came from South Korea, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

According to the military, around 720 balloons were discovered in Seoul and other regions of the country. The bags attached to them contained cigarette butts, paper, scraps of clothing, plastic and other waste products. The objects should not be touched as they could be potentially dangerous.

North Korea, which is ruled by Kim Jong Un in an authoritarian manner, described its behavior primarily as a reaction to actions by private organizations in South Korea, which repeatedly send gas balloons filled with leaflets and other propaganda material across the border into the neighboring country. Among other things, the leaflets call for the overthrow of the government. North Korea is usually very sensitive to propaganda against its own leadership. Last Sunday, North Korea threatened to send “piles of waste paper and dirt” across the border regions. According to South Korea, around 260 balloons floated across the military demarcation line between Tuesday and Wednesday.

The military sent teams again on Sunday to recover the debris. The balloons were not shot down because it could not be completely ruled out that they contained toxic chemicals, it said.

Together with North Korea's missile tests and GPS jamming signals, these balloons filled with garbage pose a threat, said security adviser Chang. The provocations are an attempt to “spread fear and chaos in our society.” According to South Korea, North Korea wants to use jammers to interrupt GPS signals in the border region.

Yonhap reported, citing a government official, that South Korea could also resume propaganda announcements using loudspeakers at the border as a countermeasure. The broadcasts to the north were suspended in 2018 as part of a temporary rapprochement. North Korea had also made such propaganda announcements. The mutual broadcasts were seen as a means of psychological warfare and a relic of the Cold War.

Under the previous liberal South Korean government, a law banning the sending of leaflets and other objects across the border came into force in 2021. The Constitutional Court lifted the ban last year, arguing that it disproportionately restricted freedom of expression.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been increasing significantly for some time. North Korea has increased its tests of nuclear-capable missiles and other weapons. South Korea and the USA have expanded their military cooperation, including joint maneuvers.