‘Will soon take action’: North Korea’s fresh threat to South Korea amid propaganda leaflet row

Seoul: Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, warned on Saturday that the communist country will “soon take the next action” against South Korea’s “betrayal” and “crimes” against Pyongyang, even as the row over anti-propaganda leaflets intensified.

Tensions have been brewing between the two Koreas over North Korean defectors in the South sending out propaganda leaflets into the North criticising the Kim regime.
Kim Yo-jong, who is a key advisor to her brother, said that the army has been entrusted to take “necessary action” against Seoul, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported.

“I feel it is high time to surely break with the South Korean authorities. We will soon take a next action,” she said in a statement cited by the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“By exercising my power authorised by the Supreme Leader, our party and the state, I gave an instruction to the arms of the department in charge of the affairs to decisively carry out the next action,” the statement said.
The sharp comments from the North Korean leader’s sister came about a week after Pyongyang snapped all communication lines with Seoul and threatened to scrap a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement aimed at reducing tensions, citing South Korean activist groups and North Korean defectors sending anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets into the communist country.

Kim Yo-jong asserted “the right to taking the next action against the enemy will be entrusted to the General Staff of our army.”

North Korea has refused to hold talks with its southern neighbour at least since Tuesday, despite Seoul’s announcement of pushing legislation to ban sending of anti-propaganda leaflets.

“Getting stronger day by day are the unanimous voices of all our people demanding for surely settling accounts with the riff-raff, who dared hurt the absolute prestige of our Supreme Leader representing our country and its great dignity, and flew rubbish to the inviolable territory of our side and with those who connived at such hooliganism, whatever may happen,” Kim Yo-jong was quoted as saying. She stated that the army will determine its next move that will cool down “our people’s resentment and surely carry it out.”

For years, conservative South Korean activists, including North Korean defectors living in the South, have floated huge balloons into the North, carrying leaflets criticising Kim Jong-un over his nuclear ambitions and human rights record.

The leafleting controversy has, at times, triggered a furious response from Pyongyang, which bristles at any attempt to undermine its leadership.

South Korea has typically let activists launch such balloons, citing their rights to freedom of speech, but has halted some attempts when North Korean warnings appeared to be serious. In 2014, North Korean troops opened fire at propaganda balloons flying towards their territory, triggering an exchange of fire that caused no known causalities.

Kim Yo-jong has termed the defectors as “human scums” and “mongrel dogs” and threatened to permanently shut down a liaison office as well as jointly run factory park, both in North Korea.

Source: ANI