South Korea restarts propaganda broadcasts across border in reaction to North's balloon launches

A balloon, presumably sent by North Korea, is seen in a paddy field in Incheon, South Korea on June 10, 2024. (Im Sun-suk / Yonhap via AP)

Seoul -

South Korea said Friday it has restarted anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts across the border in response to North Korea's resumption of trash-carrying balloon launches.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that its frontline loudspeaker broadcasts were conducted between Thursday evening and Friday morning in areas where North Korea floated the balloons.

The South Korean broadcasts could trigger an angry response from North Korea which is extremely sensitive to any outside attempt to undermine its political system. In 2015, when South Korea restarted loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in 11 years, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border, prompting the South to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No casualties were reported.

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South Korea's military earlier said North Korea floated the balloons on Thursday afternoon in its seventh such balloon campaign in recent months. The North's balloons launches were widely expected as it had vowed to respond to what it called repeated South Korean civilian leafleting campaigns across the border.

Starting in late May, North Korea has floated more than 2,000 balloons carrying wastepaper, scraps of cloth, cigarette butts and even manure toward South Korea, saying they were in response to South Korean activists sending political leaflets to the North via their own balloons. No hazardous materials were found.

In response, South Korea suspended a 2018 tension-reduction deal with North Korea, resuming propaganda broadcasts briefly and front-line live-fire military drills at border areas. The June 9 propaganda broadcasts by South Korea reportedly included K-pop sensation BTS's mega-hits like "Butter" and "Dynamite," weather forecasts and news on Samsung, the biggest South Korean company, as well as outside criticism of the North's missile program and its crackdown on foreign video.

The Cold War-style campaigns between the Koreas had paused after North Korea last sent rubbish-carrying balloons toward South Korea in late June.

Earlier this week, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said South Korean balloons have been found again at border and other areas in North Korea. In her statement Tuesday, Kim Yo Jong threatened new retaliatory steps, saying South Korean "scum" must be ready to pay "a gruesome and dear price." That raised concerns that North Korea could stage physical provocations, rather than balloon launches.

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South Korea's military said Wednesday it has boosted its readiness to brace for any provocation by North Korea. It said North Korea may fire at incoming South Korean balloons across the border.

It wasn't immediately known whether groups in South Korea have recently scattered leaflets in North Korea. For years, activist groups led by North Korean defectors have used helium-filled balloons to drop anti-North Korean leaflets, USB sticks containing K-pop music and South Korean dramas and U.S. dollar bills in the North.

North Korea views such activities as a serious security threat and challenge to its ban on foreign news for most of its 26 million people.

In 2020, North Korea destroyed an unoccupied South Korean-built liaison office on its territory in a furious response to South Korean civilian leafleting campaigns. In 2014, North Korea fired at balloons flying toward its territory and South Korea returned fire, though there were no casualties.

Tensions between the Koreas have heightened in recent years because of North Korea's missile tests and the expansion of U.S-South Korean military drills that North Korea calls invasion rehearsals.