South Korean Army soldiers collect the trash from a balloon presumably sent by North Korea, in Incheon, South Korea, on July 24, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Trash from at least one North Korean balloon fell on the South Korean Presidential compound on July 24, raising worries about the security of key South Korean facilities from North Korean provocations.

“The rubbish that fell on the ground at the compound in central Seoul contained no dangerous material and no one was hurt,” South Korea’s Presidential security service said in a statement. But experts say South Korea needs to shoot incoming North Korean balloons at border areas next time, as it’s not clear whether North Korea would put in hazardous items in future campaigns.

North Korea’s latest balloon launches came days after South Korea boosted its frontline broadcasts of K-pop songs and propaganda messages across the rivals’ heavily armed border. Their tit-for-tat Cold War-style campaigns are inflaming tensions, with the rivals threatening stronger steps and warning of grave consequences.

Seoul officials earlier said North Korea had used the direction of winds to fly balloons toward South Korea, but some of the past balloons had timers that were likely meant to pop the bags of trash midair. The security service gave no further details about the rubbish found at the Presidential compound, such as whether balloons were discovered along with the trash.

If North Korea is found to have used timers or any other device to deliberately dump trash on key South Korean facilities such as the Presidential office, it would certainly invite strong response by South Korea. But experts say dropping balloons at ground targets is extremely sophisticated technology and that North Korea would certainly lack such an ability.

The security service refused to disclose whether President Yoon Suk Yeol was in the office at the time. Mr.Yoon’s office earlier said he has no official schedule on July 24.

‘North Korean landmines could float into South Korea’

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier on Wednesday that North Korean balloons were flying north of Seoul after crossing the border and had urged people to be alert for falling objects.

It was North Korea’s 10th such launch since late May. The more than 2,000 huge balloons so far have dropped wastepaper, scraps of cloth, cigarette butts and even manure on South Korea. North Korea has said it was responding to South Korean activists scattering political leaflets across the border via their own balloons.

Experts say North Korea considers South Korean civilian leafleting activities a major threat to its efforts to stop the inflow of foreign news and maintain its authoritarian rule. In furious responses to past South Korean leafletting, North Korea destroyed an empty South Korean-built liaison office in its territory in 2020 and fired at incoming balloons in 2014.

The North’s balloons haven’t caused major damage but have raised security jitters among people, worried North Korea could use such balloons to drop more hazardous materials such as chemical- and biological agents.

South Korea said on Sunday it was ramping up its anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts from its loudspeakers at all major sites along the land border because North Korea was continuing launches of trash-carrying balloons. South Korea restarted last Thursday its loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in about 40 days in retaliation for North Korea’s previous balloon activities.

Observers say South Korean propaganda broadcasts can demoralise frontline North Korean troops and residents. In 2015, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border in anger over South Korea’s restart of propaganda broadcasts, prompting the South to return fire.

South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Lee Sung Joon said the ongoing South Korean broadcasts include K-pop songs and news on South Korean economic development. South Korean media reported the broadcasts also contained news on the recent defection of a senior North Korean diplomat and called the mine-planting work by North Korean soldiers at the border “hellish, slave-like lives.”

South Korea has an estimated 40 loudspeakers — 24 stationary and 16 mobile ones. South Korea’s military said on July 22 it was fully operating the fixed loudspeakers and plans to use the mobile loudspeakers as well.

South Korea’s military has warned of other unspecified stronger steps if North Korea continues its balloon campaigns. North Korea hasn’t made an official response to the South Korean propaganda broadcasts. But last week, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, threatened new countermeasures against South Korean civilian leafleting as she warned that South Korean “scum” must be ready to pay “a gruesome and dear price” over their actions.

South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol sounded a warning to fellow world leaders on September 21 about the recent communication and possible cooperation between North Korea and Russia, saying any action by a permanent U.N. Security Council member to circumvent international norms would be dangerous and “paradoxical.”

Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly, Yoon Suk Yeol invoked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s visit last week to Russia, which is one of the five permanent members of the council, the U.N.’s most powerful body.

Kim met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia’s far east. The two said they may cooperate on defence issues but gave no specifics, which left South Korea and its allies — including the United States — uneasy.

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“It is paradoxical that a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, entrusted as the ultimate guardian of world peace, would wage war by invading another sovereign nation and receive arms and ammunition from a regime that blatantly violates Security Council resolutions,” Yoon told fellow leaders on the second day of the U.N. General Assembly’s annual gathering of leaders. He had been expected to raise the issue.

Yoon said that if North Korea “acquires the information and technology necessary” to enhance its weapons of mass destruction in exchange for giving conventional weapons to Russia, that would also be unacceptable to the South.

“Such a deal between Russia and the DPRK will be a direct provocation threatening the peace and security of not only Ukraine but also the Republic of Korea,” he said, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “The Republic of Korea, together with its allies and partners, will not stand idly by.” South Korea has expressed support for Ukraine, which is fighting a war against the 2022 Russian invasion of its territory. At the G20 summit in India earlier this month, Yoon said Seoul would contribute $300 million to Ukraine next year and — eventually — a support package worth more than $2 billion.

“The nuclear and missile programmes of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea pose not only a direct and existential threat to the peace of the Republic of Korea, but also (are) a serious challenge to peace in the Indo-Pacific region and across the globe,” Yoon said in his speech.

Foreign experts speculate that Russia and North Korea were pushing to reach arms transfer deals in violation of Security Council resolutions. Both countries are in major disputes with the West, and both are under international sanctions.

While Russian-North Korean cooperation is feared to fuel Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, it has also encouraged unease in South Korea, where many think a Russian transfer of sophisticated weapons technologies would help North Korea acquire a functioning spy satellite, a nuclear-powered submarine and more powerful missiles.

On Tuesday, South Korean Vice-Foreign Minister Chang Ho-jin summoned the Russian ambassador to Seoul, Andrey Kulik, and urged Moscow to immediately stop its military cooperation with North Korea, which he said would have a “very negative impact” on its relations with the South.

North Korea has been increasing its nuclear arsenal for years, ratcheting up tensions in the region as it threatens to use nuclear weapons in conflicts. It regularly conducts missile tests, particularly in the past year.

In response, Yoon and U.S. President Joe Biden in April agreed to expand joint military exercises, increase the temporary deployments of U.S. strategic assets and launch a bilateral nuclear consultative group.