North Korea launched about 1 million leaflets by balloon into South Korea in an escalating propaganda battle after the North’s nuclear test earlier this month Seoul officials said Monday.
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South Korea resumed blaring propaganda messages from loudspeakers across the border into North Korea, which in turn, restarted its own propaganda broadcasts in response.
Seoul’s defence ministry said the North had been sending balloons loaded with leaflets on a near-daily basis, with some reaching the capital, as well as border areas. It is not the first time North Korea has lashed out at Park, the South’s first female president, in a sexist or derogatory manner.
A spokesman for the North’s foreign ministry called the purported hydrogen bomb test on January 6 a justifiable move to ensure its survival against external threats. This week North Korea claimed it had, but you can disregard Kim Jong-un’s boast for now. “I hope all the abductees will return home, and peace will come to all people living in North Korea”. The helium balloons that carry them have timers that cause them to explode, scattering the leaflets. “The South Korean puppets” resumption of psychological warfare broadcasts is a totally irrelevant provocation that has nothing whatsoever to do with the normal process of us following our parallel development course [of economic and nuclear development]”, the spokesperson said on January 15.
“The South Korean government is discussing worldwide sanctions or bilateral sanctions on North Korea in light of President Park Geun-hye’s pledge to make North Korea pay a price proportional (to the test)”, the defense minister noted. But in downplaying North Korea’s claim so as not to feed Kim Jong-un’s cravings for global attention, the Barack Obama administration risks underplaying the growing danger posed by North Korea’s unchecked efforts to develop nuclear and missile capabilities needed to threaten a nuclear strike on the United States.
“If THAAD is deployed, I believe it would contribute greatly not only to defending the U.S. military but also South Korea”, said National Defense Minister Han Min-Goo. They want the sanctions to punish the North and gain the support of China. “We continue to watch it closely”.
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The condemnation from Marzuki Darusman, who spoke during a meeting with members of Japanese families whose children and siblings were kidnapped by North Koreans, is the latest rebuke against Pyongyang over widespread rights abuses.
