South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik has said that North Korea is not a “normal country,” after Pyongyang sent at least 260 balloons over the border into the South, scattering suspected excrement and rubbish earlier this week.
North Korea said the balloons were retaliation for an ongoing campaign by North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea, who regularly send inflatables carrying propaganda leaflets.
“This is an act that is unimaginably shameful and base for a normal country,” Shin said at the 21st Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore on Saturday. He also described the balloon stunt as an “act against humanity and a clear and grave violation of the Armistice Agreement.”
Earlier this week, a South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) official told Yonhap news agency that the launch of the balloons, some of which made landfall as far as 280 km (180 miles) from the border, “violate[s] international law and seriously threaten[s] our people’s safety.”
Aside from this latest incident, South Korean Defense Minister Shin also accused the North of launching a “rocket using ballistic missile technologies prohibited under UN Security Council resolutions, claiming it was a reconnaissance satellite.”
On Monday, Japan’s coast guard said that North Korea had notified it of plans to launch a “satellite-carrying rocket” in the coming days. Last November, North Korea sent its first military reconnaissance satellite into orbit, vowing to launch three more during the course of 2024. According to Pyongyang, the space-based surveillance network is needed to monitor hostile activities in the region by the US and its allies.
On Friday, North Korean state media reported that the country’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un oversaw the firing of short-range ballistic missiles. The exercise was aimed at demonstrating the DPRK’s ability to execute “preemptive attacks” on the South, Pyongyang explained.
The US and South Korea began their own drills on Monday, which involve more than 90 aircraft.