North Korea's trash balloons deepen tensions with South

SEOUL, June 04 (AP): Animosities between North and South Korea are rising sharply again over an unusual cause: The North's rubbish-carrying balloons.

In the past week, North Korea floated hundreds of huge balloons dumping manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste batteries and even reportedly dirty diapers across South Korea. In response, South Korea vowed "unbearable" retaliatory steps and moved to suspend a fragile military deal meant to ease tensions with its northern neighbour.

Experts say if South Korea resumes live-fire drills or anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts via loudspeakers in border areas, that's certain to infuriate North Korea and may prompt it to take its own provocative countermeasures along the border.

Since May 28, North Korea has sent about 1,000 balloons carrying all kinds of trash across the border. No hazardous materials were found, but South Korean social media was still abuzz with worries that North Korea might use balloons to drop chemical, biological and other weapons next time.

After the first wave of balloons, Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said they were deployed to make good on her country's threat to "scatter mounds of wastepaper and filth" in South Korea, in reaction to previous South Korean campaigns by private citizens sending balloons with items to North Korea.

South Korea's military didn't shoot down the incoming North Korean balloons to avoid potential damage on the ground and an unwanted armed clash with the North.

It has instead decided to suspend a 2018 military agreement with North Korea to bolster its military readiness along the border. The agreement - reached during a brief period of inter-Korean rapprochement - requires the two Koreas to cease all sorts of hostile acts against each other at border areas, including firing exercises, aerial surveillance and psychological warfare.

The deal has already been in limbo, with both Korea taking some steps in breach of it amid tensions over North Korea's spy satellite launch last November. South Korea says the deal's suspension would still formally allow it to restart front-line military drills and take swift, effective responses to North Korean provocations.

North Korea's balloon campaign was among a series of provocations directed at South Korea recently. In past days, North Korea also test-fired a salvo of nuclear-capable weapons.