This file photo, taken June 10, 2024, shows a military facility installed in a border area in Paju, 49 kilometers north of Seoul. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jul. 22 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea conducted anti-Pyongyang broadcasts through its border loudspeakers in full-scale for the second day Monday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, amid tensions over the North’s launches of trash-carrying balloons into the South.
The military began the daily anti-Pyongyang broadcasts at 6 a.m. for a 16-hour run after turning them on all the fronts Sunday in response to the North’s repeated launches of the balloons, according to the JCS.
The latest broadcast is said to have included news of multiple North Korean troops killed in recent mine explosions while installing them within the North’s side of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas and a defection of a North Korean diplomat to South Korea.
North Korea has launched the trash balloons toward the South over nine occasions since late May, including some 500 such balloons Sunday, in a tit-for-tat retaliation for anti-Pyongyang leaflets that North Korean defectors in the South send to the North using balloons.
Of the North’s latest launched balloons, some 240 of them landed in South Korea, largely carrying pieces of paper, according to the JCS.
South Korea restarted anti-Pyongyang broadcasts on June 9 for the first time in six years due to the North’s balloon campaign but had switched them off the next day in an apparent bid to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control.
It resumed partially operating the loudspeakers daily since Thursday before expanding them in full scale Sunday.
The military is considering measures to expand the broadcasts if the North continues to launch the balloons or undertake other forms of provocative acts against the South.
North Korea has bristled against the loudspeaker campaign, as well as anti-Pyongyang leaflets, on fears that an influx of outside information could pose a threat to the Kim Jong-un regime.
(Yonhap)
