While frictions are rising between the two neighbors, North Korea is set to inundate the South with millions of pieces of propaganda materials criticizing the country's leader and those who defected from the North, the government's state media disclosed on Saturday.
Many of the propaganda leaflets will have the face of South Korean President Moon Jae-in printed on them and smeared with cigarette butts, an insult that means he is garbage, the KCNA news agency revealed. North Korea's university students are preparing the leaflets, the news agency said.
The plan, based on a report by state media, came a day following Pyongyang's disclosure that it was ready to start showering the South with anti-government leaflets after a wave of bitter and malice-filled denunciations of Seoul because of anti-North propaganda leaflets that have swarmed the border.
The defectors have sent such materials lambasting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un over human rights violations and his nuclear ambitions. The leaflets are usually floated in bottles or attached to balloons.
Frictions on the Korean Peninsula worsened last week after North Korea blew up an inter-Korean communications building on its territory in anger over South Korea's leafleting against the country. Pyongyang bared that it will release massive amounts of propaganda leaflets and initiate other measures to void its 2018 agreement to loosen tensions at the border.
According to KCNA, known for its blustering tone, the enraged people across the nation are "actively pushing forward with the preparations to launch a large-scale distribution of leaflets to pour the leaflets of punishment upon those in South Korea," Stella Kim and Adela Suliman of NBC News, reported.
Analysts said that the North has been launching a series of staged provocations with the objective of forcing concessions from the South and the United States. The preparations for the biggest-ever distribution of propaganda leaflets "against the enemy are almost complete," KCNA said, as reported by Yahoo News, citing an AFP story.
South Korea's Unification Ministry spokesperson Yoh Sangkey told members of the media that Pyongyang must cancel its plan to send anti-Seoul propaganda materials that are not helpful to the two countries' relations.
Earlier on Monday, Pyongyang announced that it had already produced 12 million leaflets to be released over South Korea onboard 3,000 balloons and other delivery devices.
Jeong Kyeong-doo, Defense Minister of South Korea, told lawmakers on Monday that how the country's military forces will respond to the looming leafleting by the North depends on what type of delivery device the latter would use.
