S. Korea: Trash-carrying North Korean balloons violate armistice agreement

Jun 03, 2024, 09:19 am

		0
A trash-filled balloon, which is believed to have been launched by North Korea, damaged a car in a parking lot in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, at 10:22 a.m. on June 2. / Source: Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency

AsiaToday reporter Park Ji-eun

North Korea sent another batch of balloons carrying trash to South Korea over the weekend. As more than 1,000 waste-carrying balloons were blown, damaging vehicles and properties in South Korea, the South Korean government vowed to take proactive action after holding an emergency National Security Council (NSC) meeting on Sunday.

National Security Adviser Chang Ho-jin called the North’s balloon campaign and its alleged GPS signal jamming “irrational” and “low class” that caused “public anxieties and chaos” in South Korea, in a briefing after presiding over the NSC meeting called in response. He warned that South Korea would take “unendurable” measures against the North.

“Dispatching of trash balloons and jamming GPS are despicable and irrational acts of provocation that could not have been imagined by a normal country,” he said. “The launch of ballistic missiles is a violation of the United Nations (UN) Security Council,” he added.

One of the “unendurable measures” against the North would include resumption of anti-North Korea loudspeaker broadcasts along the border. A senior source from the presidential office did not elaborate what consequences North Korea would face, but that it would not rule out resuming loudspeakers. “We will do it right away without hesitation and we don’t need to drag on,” the source said.

Regarding the recent series of North Korean provocations, the source said, “There may be a retribution for the failed satellite launch attempt and a backlash from the recent trilateral meeting between South Korea, Japan, and China,” adding, “I believe the North is intended to change the South Korean government’s North Korea policy by misleading and unsettling the people as if the responsibility for the current situation on the Korean Peninsula lies with the government, not them.”

South Korean and U.S. defense authorities also reaffirmed their recognition that the North’s launch of trash balloons is a violation of the Armistice Agreement.

The presidential office, the government, and the ruling People Power Party (PPP) also urged the North to immediately stop launching waste-filled balloons and jamming GPS signals at a party-government council meeting held Sunday. North Korea began to launch the trash-filled balloons from Saturday, some 720 of which were detected in and around Seoul and regions farther south such as the Chungcheong provinces as of Sunday afternoon, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The North tried to jam navigation or GPS signals in South Korea’s northwestern region. Besides the balloon launches and GPS jamming, the North fired several short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea east of the Korean Peninsula on Thursday.

#balloon #North Korea #South Korea #NSC