North Korea agrees to stop sending balloons containing manure and waste to South Korea

North Korea agreed to stop flying hundreds of balloons carrying waste and manure to South Korea, saying Sunday it launched the campaign to give its southern neighbors “enough experience of how They feel unpleasant.”

The Associated Press reported that North Korea’s announcement came just hours after South Korea said it would punish the North with “unbearable” retaliation for its balloon activities and other provocations recent.

Last week, North Korea sent hundreds of balloons carrying trash and manure to South Korea, prompting the South Korean military to mobilize chemical and explosive response teams to recover objects and debris in various regions of the country.

The balloon campaign came as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged his military scientists to overcome a satellite launch failure and continue developing space reconnaissance capabilities. He called the efforts crucial to countering U.S. and South Korean military activities, state media reported Wednesday.

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The telegram reported observers’ claims that South Korea was likely to restart its front-line loudspeaker broadcasts to North Korea, criticizing the country for its human rights abuses while also broadcasting information global and K-pop songs.

North Korean leaders are sensitive to these broadcasts because most of the country’s 26 million people do not have access to foreign radio and television programs.

Kim Kang II, North Korea’s vice defense minister, said Sunday that the country would temporarily suspend balloon activities, adding that it was a countermeasure against the South’s leafleting campaigns.

“We have ensured that the ROK clans have enough experience to understand how unpleasant they feel and how much effort is needed to clear up the scattered waste papers,” Kim said in a reprinted statement. by state media.

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He also said that if South Korean activists sent more anti-Pyongyang leaflets via balloons to North Korea again, they would resume flying balloons to dump waste hundreds of times more than the South Korean leaflets. Koreans found in the North.

South Korea’s military said Sunday that more than 700 balloons had been found in various parts of the country, along with nearly 260 other balloons found days earlier.

Inside the balloons, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, were manure, cigarette butts, scraps of fabric, waste paper and vinyl. No dangerous substances would have been included.

Despite the South’s claims that only about 1,000 balloons had been launched, North Korea’s vice defense minister said 3,500 balloons carrying 15 tons of waste had been launched.

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Chang Ho-jin, South Korea’s national security director, said Sunday the government had decided to take “unbearable” measures against North Korea in retaliation for balloon launches, alleged jamming of navigation signals GPS in South Korea and the simulation of nuclear strikes against the South.

Experts say North Korea’s balloon campaign, believed to be the first of its kind in seven years, aims to stoke internal division in South Korea over its conservative government’s hardline policies toward the North .

Animosity between the Koreas is at its worst level in years as the pace of Kim’s weapons demonstrations and South Korea’s combined military exercises with the United States and Japan has intensified since 2022.

The satellite launch failure is a setback for Kim’s plan to launch three more military spy satellites in 2024 after North Korea’s first military reconnaissance satellite went into orbit last November. The November launch followed two failed attempts.

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North Korea has argued 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 to monitoring U.S. and South Korean military activities and enhancing the threat posed by its nuclear-capable missiles.

“Given that the security environment of our State is undergoing radical changes due to American military maneuvers and provocations of all kinds, the possession of military reconnaissance satellites appears as a prerequisite for our State to strengthen its deterrence of “self-defense and safeguard its sovereignty and security against potential threats,” Kim said.

“Although we have failed to achieve the results we hoped to achieve in the recent launch of a reconnaissance satellite, we must never feel frightened or discouraged, but redouble our efforts. It is natural that we learn more and make greater progress after experiencing failure.”

North Korea has not said when it would be ready to attempt a satellite launch again, which some experts say could take months.

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Kim has raised the profile of his ties with Russia in recent months, evidenced by his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September as they align over their separate confrontations with Washington.

Kim’s meeting with Putin took place at a spaceport in Russia’s Far East and came after North Korea’s consecutive failures in its attempts to launch its first spy satellite. Putin then told Russian journalists that Moscow was ready to help the North build satellites.

The United States and South Korea have also accused North Korea of ​​supplying Russia with artillery shells, missiles and other military equipment to help prolong its fighting in Ukraine.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.