A South Korean religious group said Saturday that it has flown a fresh batch of leaflets condemning North Korean leader Kim Jong-il into the North, a move seen by Pyongyang as highly provocative, Yonhap News reported Saturday.
The North Korea Christian Association, a Seoul-based group, flew 26 balloons carrying a total of 1.5 million leaflets condemning North Korea's regime and its leader from Baeknyeong Island, near the inter-Korean sea border on the West Sea, Friday, Lee Min-bok, the group's representative, was quoted as saying. The group also sent plastic bags carrying 500 socks, stockings, toothpaste, toothbrushes, aspirin, ball pens and lighters, he said.
The communist country has expressed its anger over the flyers critical of the country's dictatorship and the private life of its leader sent by Christian groups and North Korean defectors. Scuffles also erupted recently in South Korea as progressive civic activists tried to physically prevent such leaflets from being sent out of fear that they will further strain chilled inter-Korean relations.
Most of the groups behind the leaflets have temporarily suspended their campaign after South Korea's ruling Grand National Party has requested them to show restraint amid strained relations with the North. But Lee insisted his organization will continue flying the balloons.
"Regardless of other organizations, we will continue sending leaflets should weather conditions be met," Lee was quoted as saying.
According to the national weather agency, winds in the region were blowing from the southwest on Friday.
Pyongyang reportedly delivered a fresh warning this week against the move. In meetings with South Korean businesspeople operating in the joint industrial complex in Gaeseong, Lt. Gen. Kim Yong-chol, head of the policy planning office of the North's National Defense Commission, denounced conservative lawmakers' move to fund the activist groups, according to Kim Kyu-chol, head of the non-governmental Forum for Inter-Korean Relations.
Inter-Korean relations have dramatically soured since conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in February. Lee's conservative government suspended food aid and demanded North Korea come clean on its nuclear ambitions and human rights conditions in return for Seoul's assistance.