SEOUL: North Korea said on Monday (Jun 22) it has readied thousands of balloons and millions of leaflets in preparation for "retaliatory punishment" against South Korea.
The detail, in a state media report, came a day after the North said it was preparing to begin an anti-South leaflet campaign following a series of vitriolic condemnations of Seoul because of anti-North leaflets floated over the border.
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Defectors in the South send such leaflets, which criticise the North's leader Kim Jong Un over human rights abuses and his nuclear ambitions. The messages are usually attached to balloons or floated in bottles.
READ: North Korea warns South to drop 'nonsensical' denuclearisation talk
Analysts have said North Korea has been conducting a series of staged provocations aimed at forcing concessions from Seoul and Washington.
"The preparations for the largest-ever distribution of leaflets against the enemy are almost complete," a report by the Korean Central News Agency said.
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"Publishing and printing institutions at all levels in the capital city have turned out 12 million leaflets of all kinds reflective of the wrath and hatred of the people from all walks of life," it said.
More than "3,000 balloons of various types capable of scattering leaflets deep inside South Korea, have been prepared", KCNA added.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Inter-Korean relations have been frozen for months, following the collapse of a summit in Hanoi between Kim and US President Donald Trump early last year.
That meeting foundered on what the North would be willing to give up in exchange for a loosening of sanctions.
The nuclear-armed and impoverished North is subject to multiple UN Security Council sanctions over its banned weapons programmes.
The South's President Moon Jae-in initially brokered a dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington, but the North now blames him for not persuading the United States to relax sanctions.
"South Korea has to face the music. Only when it experiences how painful and how irritating it is to dispose of leaflets and waste, it will shake off its bad habit," KCNA said.
"The time for retaliatory punishment is drawing near."
As part of what analysts saw as staged provocations, the North last Tuesday blew up an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border, triggering broad international condemnation.
It has also threatened to bolster its military presence in and around the Demilitarized Zone.
The North's actiRead More – Source
