The latest salvo in the two nations’ tit-for-tat operations of provocation and propaganda, North Korea has launched hundreds more trash-filled balloons southward, the Seoul military reported on Saturday.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea claimed that over the course of the previous three days, North Korea has fired over 900 garbage balloons, of which roughly 190 were launched late on Friday and over 100 of them have already landed, mostly in Seoul and the northern Gyeonggi province.
The military stated that there was no public safety danger and that the bags affixed to the balloons contained “mainly paper and plastic waste.”
Since May, North Korea has released roughly 5,000 trash-filled balloons south, claiming the balloons are a form of revenge for South Korean activists’ propaganda balloons that were launched north.
Seoul has responded by halting a military agreement with Pyongyang aimed at lowering tensions and resuming some propaganda broadcasts over loudspeakers near the border.
Professor Leif-Eric Easley of Ewha University in Seoul claimed that the balloon barrages were just North Korea’s unsuccessful propaganda tactic.
Easley stated that although Kim Yo-jong, a significant regime spokesman and the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, “may think that trash balloons exacerbate political divisions in South Korea, but they do more to tarnish North Korea’s international image,”
However, he continued, “Southern residents are irritated by the necessary clean-up operations and worry about potential escalation.”
“Resuming diplomatic relations with Seoul, subject to South Korean civic groups willingly refraining from balloon launches, is the most rational way out of the current impasse,” said Pyongyang.
The latest launches happened while Fumio Kishida, the departing prime minister of Japan, was in Seoul for a two-day visit and met with Yoon Suk Yeol, the leader of South Korea, on Friday.
The necessity of “cooperation between Korea and Japan and also with the United States, to respond to the North Korean nuclear issue” was something the two talked about.
The North recently announced the deployment of 250 ballistic missile launchers to its southern border, bringing the two Koreas’ relations to one of their lowest points in years.
