North Korea to launch anti-South leaflet drive
North Korea is preparing to launch an anti-Seoul leaflet campaign, state media said, prompting sharp criticism from South Korea with tensions high on the peninsula.
Pyongyang has recently issued a series of vitriolic condemnations of Seoul over anti-North leaflets, which defectors based in the South send across the border – usually attached to balloons or floated in bottles.
North Korea has upped the pressure over the campaigns with a dramatic demolition of a building on its side of the border that symbolised inter-Korean rapprochement, threats to bolster its military presence at the border, and now leaflets of its own.
“Enraged” North Koreans are now “pushing forward with the preparations for launching a largescale distribution” of “leaflets of punishment” into the South, the official KCNA news agency said.
“Every action should be met with proper reaction and only when one experiences it oneself, one can feel how offending it is.”
Photos carried by the official
Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed North Koreans preparing the leaflets, and cigarette butts and ashes scattered over flyers featuring the face of South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
One of the leaflets with an image of Moon drinking a cup of unidentified beverage read: “(He has) eaten it all, including the North-South Korea agreement”.
Hours later, Seoul’s unification ministry urged Pyongyang to withdraw the plan “immediately”, calling the move “very regrettable”.
Seoul filed a police complaint last week against two defector groups over the leaflets that have offended Pyongyang, and warned of a “thorough crackdown” against activists sending anti-North leaflets.