 "Soldiers inspect debris from a balloon sent by North Korea that landed in Incheon, South Korea. Source: AP")
After littering South Korea by sending trash balloons for days, North Korea announced that the hermit nation would stop sending the problematic balloons to the South.
The decision to halt the operation came after Seoul reported more than hundreds of airborne waste floating across the country’s border.
North Korea’s vice-defence minister Kim Kang Il announced on Sunday that the country will “temporarily halt dropping trash over the border,” and claimed that over 15 tonnes of trash were delivered to the neighbours during the course of the operation, KCNA reported.
Kim maintained that the balloons were “strictly a responsive act” to South Korea’s years-long practice of sending balloons. Pyongyang claimed that the ballons sent by Seoul used to carry anti-North Korean leaflets
We want them to experience how dirty it feels: Pyongyang
The North Korean vice-defence minister mentioned that it was a “tit-for-tat” move. “We’ve let the South Koreans experience enough of how dirty it feels and how much joint effort it takes to clean up spread-out rubbish,” Kim said.
Meanwhile, South Korean officials pledged that the country would take “unendurable measures” against North Korea for sending more trash balloons this weekend. They mentioned that the actions will be “specified in the coming days.”
The South Korean presidential office added that the government “will not rule out the issue of resuming [playing] loudspeakers” that are used to blast propaganda across the demilitarized zone. It is important to note that the practice was discontinued after the two nations signed a military agreement back in 2018.
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Over the weekend, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff made it clear that “no substances harmful to safety” were found among the hundreds more balloons that infiltrated the country’s border. The photograph released by the JSC shows a large plastic sack containing what appears to be paper left on the roadside, while other images show officers inspecting the garbage strewn on the ground.
The South Korean government maintained that it is working with the police, local government, safety ministry, and the United Nations Command to safely retrieve the balloons and the debris.
Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong – a senior official in the reclusive regime – called the balloons “sincere presents.”
With inputs from agencies.