(Seoul) North Korea again sent balloons carrying possible trash toward South Korea on Wednesday (local time), days after the South Korean military stepped up anti-Pyongyang propaganda along the border with its heavily armed rival, Seoul officials said.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the North Korean balloons were flying north of Seoul after crossing the border. It urged the South Korean people to be alert for falling objects.
Wednesday’s balloon flights by North Korea were the 10th such event since late May. North Korea has argued that its balloon campaigns were in response to South Korean activists who have been scattering political leaflets across the border with their own balloons.
South Korea said Sunday it was stepping up anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts from loudspeakers along the land border because North Korea continued to launch balloons carrying trash.
Cold War-style retaliatory campaigns between the two Koreas are fueling tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The two countries remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.