SEOUL, January 18. /TASS/. North Korea practically on a daily basis sends on balloons over to South Korea its propaganda materials , South Korea’s National Defense Ministry said on Monday.
"Since January 13, the North Korean military have been distributing their printed propaganda practically every day," the ministry said, adding the total amount of the leaflets delivered to South Korea, including its capital city Seoul, for now is around one million.
The leaflets criticise the Republic of Korea’s President Park Geun-hue and her policies towards Pyongyang.
The North Korean military use helium-filled balloons to deliver the "packages" across the border, with is guarded very thoroughly, the ministry said. As they send over the balloons, a time relay in a certain period opens the pack and the leaflets flow over the target area.
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The situation on the Korean peninsula deteriorated seriously in last year’s August after North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire in the western part of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Seoul claimed that North Korea was the first to open fire and the artillery shelling was aimed at South Korea’s propaganda loudspeakers installed nearby. Pyongyang rejected the allegations.
On the same day, North Korea forwarded an ultimatum to South Korea to stop broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda through loudspeakers, to dismantle the equipment within next 48 hours and threatened military action otherwise. Seoul declared it would not meet Pyongyang’s demands. The situation was settled only after high-level two-day talks, where the parties agreed to continue the dialogue.
North Korea’s central television on Wednesday morning said Pyongyang had conducted a successful test of a thermonuclear bomb.
North Korea previously conducted three nuclear tests: in 2006, in 2009 and in 2013. Following these tests, the United Nations Security Council imposed different kinds of sanctions on Pyongyang. In the past two years, North Korea refrained from nuclear tests limiting itself to ballistic missile launches as a response to South Korea’s and the United States’ large-scale military exercises.
On January 16, a representative of the North Korean Foreign ministry said in a statement "the DPRK still keeps in force its suggestions aimed at peace and stability in the peninsula and in North-Eastern Asia." It is clear from the statement, that Pyongyang is ready to stop nuclear tests and sign a peace treaty (instead of a truce treaty), if the U.S. refuses from military drills (at the shores of the peninsula).
Right now, the statement reads, the US is responsible for aggravation of the situation in the region, as the US "considers sending over to the south strategic nuclear means." No less responsible are the South Korean authorities "which have resumed the broadcast at the demilitarised zone."
The foreign ministry’s representative criticised the United Nations Organisation "for the intention to fabricate a resolution on imposing sanctions" against the people’s republic.
"All those provocations and hostile actions will not be limited by an aggravated situation, but will inevitably cause a war," the statement reads.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un said on December 10 the country had a hydrogen bomb of its own. "We have managed to become a great nuclear power capable of protecting the independence and national dignity of our Motherland with the might of strikes by nuclear and hydrogen bombs," Kim Jong-Un was quoted by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) as saying.