Kim Yo-jong, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister, defended its sending of excrement-filled balloons to South Korea and said the balloons were “sincere presents” sent to the “goblins of liberal democracy who are crying for the guarantee of freedom of expression.”
In a speech carried by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Wednesday, Kim said international law cannot be applied to, nor govern, the flight trajectory of the balloons, refuting a claim from the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) that the balloon launch is a violation of international law.
Kim also dubbed the balloon launch as “North Koreans’ freedom of expression.” Her remarks appear to target the South Korean government’s stance of allowing North Korean defectors to send balloons to the North, which mainly carry anti-North Korean materials that could undermine the legitimacy of Kim’s rule.
She added that South Koreans “should continue to pick up rubbish scattered” by North Koreans in the future.
The Unification Ministry on Thursday denounced Kim’s words as “self-contradictory,” adding that the North is a regime that restrains freedom of expression with laws banning reactionary thought and free expression of its people.
The ministry also pointed out that Kim’s comments that “such balloon launches will continue” in the future “revealed that the balloons were sent by the North’s authorities, not by North Koreans.”
The United Nations Command (UNC) is investigating the 260 trash- and excrement-filled balloons from North Korea, considering it a violation of the 1953 Armistice Agreement.
The UNC stated Thursday on its Facebook page that the “military action of deploying mass numbers of balloons with substances [like contaminated materials] that can cause harm to local populations is not only offensive and unsanitary but constitutes a violation of the Armistice Agreement.”
![A military soldier on Wednesday collects contaminated materials carried with balloons sent from North Korea in Gyeonggi. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2024/05/30/aba5cd74-0d62-41ca-95ee-cdc6d255947e.jpg)
The UNC’s statement came a day after South Korea’s JCS said Wednesday it is “closely working” with the UNC regarding the balloon launch.
The UNC said an official and special investigation is underway with “the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission” that will “provide third-party oversight.”
UNC spokesperson Mayra Nañez condemned the North’s balloon launch and said the action of “sending balloons containing fecal matter and other contaminants into a neighbor’s airspace” is “irresponsible.”
She added that such behaviors do not correspond to the North’s desire to be recognized as a “responsible member of the international community.”
![Citizens watch a news report on North Korea firing around 10 short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea at Seoul Station in central Seoul on Thursday morning. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2024/05/30/987f8473-4719-407d-9307-de9c584bfe48.jpg)
A day after flying hundreds of feces-filled balloons across the border to the South, the North continued its provocation by firing around 10 short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) into the East Sea on Thursday morning.
The South’s JCS announced Thursday that the SRBM launches were fired from Pyongyang’s Sunan area at around 6:14 a.m. the same day. The missiles flew about 350 kilometers (217 miles) before landing in the East Sea.
Judging by the flight distance, the missiles are presumed to be super-large multiple rocket launchers (KN-25). Large cities such as Seoul and Daejeon are within 350 kilometers of Pyongyang, as well as major air force bases such as Cheongju, Suwon, Wonju and Seosan.
Although North Korea has continued to engage in ballistic missile provocation under the pretext of test launches, it is unusual that a launch involving such a large number of missiles took place.
“We strongly condemn North Korea’s missile launch as an act of provocation that seriously threatens the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula,” the JCS said. “Our military has strengthened monitoring and vigilance against additional launches, while closely sharing information related to North Korean ballistic missiles with the United States and Japanese authorities.
“The military will closely monitor North Korea’s various activities under a solid South Korea-U.S. joint defense posture and will respond overwhelmingly to any provocation,” the JCS added. “We will maintain our full military capabilities and posture.”
North Korea’s latest ballistic missile launch came 13 days after a short-range missile flew 300 kilometers on May 17, and three days after a failed spy satellite launch on Monday.
Shortly after the SRBM launches, South Korea’s military detected North Korea’s global positioning system (GPS) jamming signals from around 7:50 a.m. in the area north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL). The JCS said that there were no restrictions on military operations due to the GPS jamming.
Seoul’s Foreign Ministry announced Thursday that South Korea, the United States and Japan’s representatives for North Korean policy discussed ways to cooperate in response to North Korea’s short-range ballistic missile launch.
Lee Joon-il, director of the Korean Peninsula Policy Bureau, had a three-way telephone consultation with Jung Pak, a senior official on North Korea at the U.S. State Department, and Hamamoto Yukiya, deputy director-general of Japan’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, on Thursday, and shared his assessment of North Korea’s ballistic missile launch.
BY LIM JEONG-WON, LEE SOO-JUNG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]
