North Korea halts ‘tit for tat waste conflict’ after sending poo balloons to South
North Korea has announced it will temporarily stop sending poo and rubbish-filled balloons to its southern neighbours.
The country’s vice-defence minister Kim Kang II said it sent 15 tonnes of waste to South Korea last week. Over 3,000 balloons are believed to have been floated over the border.
According to a statement released by state media KCNA on Sunday, Kim said: “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.”
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The balloons were sent in retaliation for the dropping of anti-regime leaflets by South Korean groups.
(Image: AP)
They were found in the capital Seoul, as well as the provinces of Gyeonggi and Chungcheong.
Kim said yesterday the balloons were “strictly a responsive act” to South Korea’s years-long practice of sending balloons with anti-North Korea leaflets the other way.
Meanwhile a South Korean official pledged the country would take “unendurable measures” against North Korea. It is expected the plans will be revealed in the next few days.
The official from the presidential office added that the government “will not rule out the issue of resuming [playing] loudspeakers” used to blast propaganda across the demilitarised zone.
(Image: AP)
They have been off since a military agreement was signed in 2018.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said “no substances harmful to safety” were found among the hundreds more balloons that reached the country on Saturday evening.
This was unlike earlier in the week when used toilet paper was found in some of the balloons that crossed the border.
Latest photos released by the JCS show a large sack containing what appears to be paper left on the roadside, while other images show officers inspecting rubbish strewn on the ground.
Others showed burned-out cigarette butts.
(Image: KCNA VIA KNS/AFP via Getty Image)
South Korea said its military is working with the police, local government, safety ministry, and the United Nations Command to safely retrieve the balloons and the debris.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong – a senior official in the reclusive regime – called the balloons “sincere presents.”
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