Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


                 Koreas Trade Threats Over Propaganda Balloons

   by Steve Herman

   The two Koreas are exchanging threats ahead of a planned launch of
   balloons in the South Monday to send leaflets to the North - an event
   Pyongyang considers a provocation.
    North Korea issued a fresh threat Friday in a dispatch from its army's
   western front command to conduct a military attack if there is any
   attempt in the South to send balloons northward.
   The military says an October 22 propaganda balloon launch is being
   orchestrated by what it calls traitors and the South Korean military.
   In a Friday afternoon radio broadcast, a North Korean announcer,
   reading the military statement, says if even the smallest movement is
   detected to scatter propaganda leaflets, the Western Front will launch
   a merciless military strike without warning.
   The dispatch also requests those living around the Imjingak Pavilion in
   Paju City -- just south of the DMZ and about 30 kilometers north of
   Seoul - to evacuate the area "in anticipation of possible damage."
   South Korea's defense minister, Kim Kwan-jin, told members of the
   National Assembly if the North fires on the pavilion, the South's
   military will promptly attack the source of the shelling.
   Professor Yang Moo-jin at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies
   says Pyongyang has made similar threats before but never acted on them.
   Yang says this latest threat is likely a response to South Korean
   President Lee Myung-bak's visit this week to a frontier island where he
   vowed to protect the disputed maritime border and punish any
   provocations from the North.
   The professor says he doubts that previous propaganda leaflets floated
   North had any real impact and Pyongyang is merely using the next
   planned launch as a pretext to raise tensions.
   Yang says while South Korea's government could ask the private group to
   halt their activities he does not think they should because it is
   important to send a message to Pyongyang that provocations will not be
   tolerated.
   The head of Freedom Fighters for North Korea, the group planning to
   launch the balloons says the threat of an attack will not deter them.
   The two Koreas technically remain at war since a 1953 armistice halted
   three years of destructive civil conflict that killed more than two
   million civilians and combatants.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/koreas-trade-threats-over-propaganda-
   balloon-launch/1529426.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/koreas-trade-threats-over-propaganda-balloon-launch/1529426.html