North Korea Sends Additional Trash Balloons to South amid Warning of 'New Counteraction'

North Korea sent hundreds more balloons carrying trash over the border,  Seoul's military reported on Monday. This happened after Kim Jong Un's powerful sister warned that there would be more reactions if South Korea kept up its "psychological warfare."

(Photo Credit: Yonhap News Agency/Reuters) North Korea Sends Additional Trash Balloons to South amid Warning of 'New Counteraction'

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Lately,  North Korea has been sending hundreds of balloons into South Korea,  filled with things like cigarette butts and toilet paper. They say this is in response to activists in the South sending balloons with anti-Pyongyang messages northwards, which Seoul isn't able to legally prevent.

In a statement released by the official Korean Central News Agency,  she criticized the activists' leaflets as "psychological warfare" and cautioned that unless Seoul stopped the activities and ended the loudspeaker broadcasts,  the North would respond.

Kim Yo Jong,  Kim's sister and a key government spokeswoman,  mentioned in a statement released early Monday that South Korea might "suffer a bitter embarrassment of picking up waste paper without rest and it will be its daily work".

"If the ROK simultaneously carries out the leaflet scattering and loudspeaker broadcasting provocation over the border,  it will undoubtedly witness the new counteraction of the DPRK,"  Kim Yo Jong said,  referring to both countries by their official names.

The statement from Kim's sister shows that "North Korea is raising its voice in order to shift the blame for the current situation to South Korea and also to justify their provocation,"  Kim Dong-yub,  professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul,  told AFP.

Pyongyang could do "something creative like throwing flour (which) will cause absolute panic in the South which they will be happy about,"  Kim added,  considering the possibility that the North might stage a fake biological attack on the South.

It is likely that the cycle of escalation will continue and "North Korea will do something beyond our imagination,"  Kim added.

According to Seoul's military,  North Korea sent around 310 balloons filled with trash overnight,  with around 50 landing in South Korea territory. By early Monday,  they reported that no more balloons were detected in the air,  Yonhap news agency shared.

"The latest batch of waste-loaded balloons sent late Sunday contained scrap paper and plastic,  with no toxic material detected so far,"  Yonhap said,  citing the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

So,  this month,  South Korea decided to hit pause on a 2018 military agreement that was supposed to help ease tensions. Instead,  they started up those loudspeaker broadcasts along the border again,  mainly because of North Korea's balloon activities. Pyongyang wasn't too thrilled about it and even warned that Seoul might be creating "a new crisis." The broadcasts included a mix of K-pop hits,  weather updates,  and news that took a critical view of North Korea's policies.

The back-and-forth balloon campaign kicked off in mid-May when activists in the South, including North Korean defectors, launched dozens of balloons carrying anti-Kim messages and K-pop music flash drives towards the North.

In response,  Pyongyang has sent over a thousand balloons carrying bags of garbage into the South. Seoul has called this action "low class" and also stated that it violates the armistice agreement that ended hostilities in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953.

Seoul responded to the balloons by tearing up the 2018 military deal and restarting loudspeaker broadcasts along the border, which haven't been used since 2016 when they were turned on in response to North Korea's fourth nuclear test,  according to Yonhap.