North Korea says it will stop sending trash balloons as South Korea vows strong retaliation

livemint.com:

North Korea with "unbearable" retaliatory steps over its balloon activities and other recent provocations.Observers say South Korea will likely restart front-line loudspeaker broadcasts into North Korea that include criticism of its abysmal human rights situation, world news and K-pop songs. North Korea is extremely sensitive to such broadcasts because most of its 26 million people have no official access to foreign TV and radio programs.It wasn’t immediately unclear if South Korea would move ahead with its punitive measures following North Korea’s suspension of balloon launches.On Sunday night, Kim Kang Il, a North Korean vice defense minister, said that the North will temporarily suspend its balloon activities.

He said they were a countermeasure against previous South Korean leafleting campaigns.“We made the ROK (Republic of Korea) clans get enough experience of how much unpleasant they feel and how much effort is needed to remove the scattered wastepaper," Kim said in a statement carried by state media.He said that if South Korean activists float anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets via balloons again, North Korea will resume flying its own balloons to dump rubbish hundreds times the amount of the South Korean leaflets found in the North.Earlier Sunday, South Korea’s military said that more than 700 balloons flown from North Korea were discovered in various parts of the country, in addition to about 260 balloons found a few days earlier. Tied to the balloons were manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste paper and vinyl, but no dangerous substances, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.Kim, the North Korean official, said North Korea flew 3,500 balloons carrying 15 tons of wastepaper.South Korea’s national