North Korea is preparing to send around 12 million propaganda leaflets to South Korea via some 3,000 balloons, state media reported on Monday, saying, "The time for retaliatory punishment" was fast approaching.
The North has threatened to send propaganda leaflets into Seoul in retaliation against South Korea's failure to stop North Korean defectors and other activists from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets into the communist state despite their 2018 summit agreement banning such activity, reports Yonhap News Agency.
Meanwhile, South Korea on Monday urged North Korea to scrap a plan to launch propaganda leaflets across the border, after the North said it's ready to float 12 million leaflets in what would be the largest such psychological campaign against its southern rival.
Animosities on the Korean Peninsula rose sharply last week, after North Korea destroyed an inter-Korean liaison office on its territory in anger over South Korean civilian leafleting against it. North Korea said it will fly propaganda leaflets and take other steps to nullify 2018 deals that were meant to ease military tensions at the border.
Yoh Sangkey, a spokesman at Seoul's Unification Ministry, told reporters that North Korea must suspend its plan to send anti-Seoul leaflets that "are not helpful to South-North (Korea) relations at all." Earlier Monday, North Korea said it had manufactured 12 million propaganda leaflets to be floated toward South Korea aboard 3,000 balloons and other unspecified delivery equipment.
