North Korea sent some 600 balloons carrying trash into South Korea overnight in the latest move by the North Koreans to rile their rival neighbours.
The balloons carrying garbage such as cigarette butts, cloth, paper waste and plastic were found across the capital, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
It said the military was monitoring the starting point and conducting aerial reconnaissance to track down and collect the balloons, which have large bags of trash suspended beneath them.
North Korea on Wednesday sent hundreds of balloons carrying trash and excrement across the heavily fortified border as what it called “gifts of sincerity”.
South Korea’s Defence Minister Shin Won-sik said during a meeting with US Defence Secretary Austin Lloyd on the side lines of the Shangri-La security dialogue in Singapore that the balloons violated the armistice agreement, according to South Korea’s military.
The two reaffirmed a coordinated response to any North Korean threats and provocations based on the South Korea-US alliance’s combined defence posture, it added.
South Korea’s National Security Council standing committee will meet this afternoon to discuss whether to resume blasting loudspeakers at North Korea in response to the trash balloons, Yonhap news agency reported, citing the presidential office.
South Korea stopped blaring propaganda across the border in 2018 after a rare summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
