Kim Yo Jong hints more trash balloons could be sent to South Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, vowed Sunday to respond to what she described as a South Korean civil leaflet campaign that could point to new shipments of trash balloons from North Korea across the border.

Since late May, North Korea has sent scores of balloons filled with discarded paper, clothing scraps, cigarette butts and even manure toward South Korea in a series of nightly episodes it described as retaliation for the launching of political leaflets by South Korean activists using their own balloons. No hazardous materials have been found. South Korea responded by suspending a 2018 de-escalation agreement with North Korea and resuming live-fire exercises in border areas.

In a statement carried by state media, Kim Yo Jong said “dirty leaflets and things belonging to (South Korean) scum” had again been found in border areas and other locations in North Korea on Sunday morning.

“Despite repeated warnings from (North Korea), the (South Korean) scum does not stop its dirty and crude game,” he said.

“We have fully introduced our countermeasure in this situation. The (South Korean) clans will get tired of suffering bitter embarrassment and must be ready to pay a heavy price for their dirty play,” Kim Yo Jong said.

It was not immediately clear whether, and which, South Korean groups had recently sent balloons to the North. For years, groups led by North Korean defectors have been sending huge balloons across the border with anti-Pyongyang leaflets, USB drives with K-pop songs and South Korean novels, and US dollars.

Experts say North Korea views such campaigns as a serious provocation that could threaten its leadership because it officially bars access to foreign news for most of its 26 million people.

On June 9, South Korea again installed huge loudspeakers along the border for the first time in six years and resumed broadcasting propaganda against Pyongyang.

South Korean authorities say they are failing to prevent activists from throwing leaflets into North Korea, in line with a 2023 constitutional court ruling that struck down a controversial law criminalizing the practice as a violation of freedom of expression.

Kim Yo Jong’s statement came a day after North Korea’s defense ministry threatened to strengthen its nuclear capabilities and make Washington and Seoul pay “an unimaginably harsh price,” criticizing its rivals’ new defense protocols, which she said reveal an intention to invade the North.