North Korea threatens to abandon military agreement with the South over leaflets criticising Kim Jong-un
- North Korean leader’s sister Kim Yo-jong said South would ‘pay a dear price’ if leaflets continue to be sent across the border by defectors and activists
- Military pact was signed during summits between Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in in 2018 but little action has followed from the agreements
.png?itok=arIb17P0)
North Korea on Thursday threatened to scrap a military agreement with the South and close down a cross-border liaison office unless Seoul stops activists from flying anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border.
North Korean defectors and other activists have long flown balloons across the border carrying leaflets that criticise Kim over human rights abuses and his nuclear ambitions.
Explained: how the Korean peninsula was divided
Calling the defectors “human scum” and “rubbish-like mongrel dogs” who betrayed their homeland, she said it was “time to bring their owners to account” in a reference to the South Korean government.
She threatened to scrap a military pact signed during Moon’s visit to Pyongyang in 2018 aimed at easing border tensions, and shut down a cross-border liaison office.
Operations at the liaison office have already been suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic, and the North has carried out dozens of weapons tests since the military agreement was signed.
Kim Yo-jong also threatened to pull out permanently from joint projects with the South including the Kaesong Industrial Park and Mount Kumgang tours – both of them money-spinners for the North that have been suspended for years due to sanctions over its weapons programmes.
Hours after Kim’s statement, South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesman urged activists to refrain from flying leaflets, indicating that they were ineffective as a propaganda tool and sometimes ended up being blown back into the South.
The South Korean authorities will be forced to pay a dear price if they let this situation go on
Seoul has previously told activists to stop sending leaflets across the border as it put South Koreans living in the area in harm’s way, if the North decided to react. But activists have continued, saying they have a constitutional right to free speech.
Most recently, activists launched half a million leaflets, wrapped in plastic sheets and attached to large plastic gas-filled balloons, accusing the North’s leader of being a “hypocrite” preparing to launch new nuclear-capable missiles while engaging in a peace process.
Deaths of destitute North Korean mother and child prompt soul-searching in South Korea
Also included in the bundles floated by the balloons were 500 booklets, 1,000 memory cards and 2,000 one-dollar bank notes as incentives for North Koreans to pick up the leaflets despite the risk of being punished by North Korean authorities.
Professor Koh Yu-hwan at Dongguk University said the North was putting pressure on Moon’s government to take advantage of its strengthened presence at parliament to push through a law to prohibit such leaflet launches. Moon’s ruling Democratic Party and its allies won more than 180 seats in the 300-seat parliament in April’s parliamentary elections, securing enough seats to force laws through parliament.
