Balloon sparks barrage

AN unidentified object that flew across the border from North Korea and prompted the South to respond with warning shots was probably a balloon carrying Pyongyang’s propaganda leaflets.

A South Korean defence ministry spokesman said that the military concluded that the object was most probably a balloon after analysing information from radar and other equipment.

South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said in a statement on Tuesday that the military had broadcast a warning to North Korea in response to the object before firing the warning shots and also that the military had increased its air surveillance.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that the South fired about 90 machine gun rounds into the air and towards North Korea. Local media had speculated the object was a North Korean military drone.

It said North Korea often used balloons to fly its propa- ganda leaflets to South Korea.

There was no immediate comment in North Korea’s state-run media, and no reports that the North had returned fire.

The two Koreas face each other across the world’s most heavily armed border, and their militaries occasionally clash.

North Korea is also building nuclear-tipped missiles and has greeted new South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who wants to reach out to the North, with two missile test launches, part of a flurry of tests since leader Kim Jong Un took over in late 2011.

In 2014, soldiers exchanged machine gun and rifle fire after South Korean activists released anti-North Korean propaganda balloons across the demilitarised zone, but no casualties were reported.

In January last year South Korea’s military fired warning shots after a North Korean drone briefly crossed the border. AP