South Korea has temporarily stopped flying propaganda leaflets into North Korea about a year after it resumed the activity as part of reprisals for the communist regime's provocations, a military source said Tuesday.
"The military hasn't sent those leaflets for a few months now," the source said. "I understand the decision was made after taking into account political situations, including the government's efforts to improve inter-Korean ties."
After an 11-year moratorium, the South's military resumed sending anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets across the border last November, in response to the North's shelling of the South Korean border island of Yeonpyeong in the Yellow Sea. North Korean defectors and other South Korean activists also joined the fray, condemning North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and extolling the virtues of democracy in the South in messages contained in balloons.
North Korea has frequently bristled at any outside criticism of Kim and has made a series of verbal threats against the South. The North has denounced the leaflet practice as "an undisguised war action" and threatened to launch "direct fire," though it has yet to take any action in response.
The source said the South is continuing to broadcast anti-Pyongyang messages through loudspeakers set up along the tense border. Such broadcasts resumed after a six-year suspension in May last year, after the South-led multinational investigation concluded that North Korea had torpedoed the South Korean warship Cheonan in the Yellow Sea in March, killing 46 sailors aboard. (Yonhap)
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