North Korea vows to send retaliatory leaflets against South as tensions rise

North Korea is reportedly preparing to send its own propaganda material against the South and North Korean defectors based in the country over its southern border as part of its persisting retaliatory measures aimed at Seoul amid growing tensions between the rival neighbors.

Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency announced on Saturday that angry North Koreans throughout the nation “are actively pushing forward with the preparations for launching a large-scale distribution of leaflets,” adding that the flyers are stacked up as high as a mountain.

“Every action should be met with proper reaction and only when one experiences it oneself, one can feel how offending it is,” the report further added.

This comes after North Korea on Tuesday blew up an inter-Korean liaison office building in the border city of Kaesong in face of rising hostilities over Seoul’s failure to halt defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang propaganda flyers over the border by balloons or in bottles through the river.

North Korea blows up border liaison office, signaling anger at South

North Korea’s army says it is ready to take action against the South over the sending of propaganda leaflets into its territory.

The destruction of the liaison office followed a threat of military action by the North over South Korea’s propaganda campaign.

“Our army will rapidly and thoroughly implement any decisions and orders of the Party and government,” the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) said in a Tuesday statement carried by KCNA.

The destruction of the Liaison Office in Kaesong further prompted the resignation of South Korea’s Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul, a point man appointed to mend fragile ties with the North.

Kim said he took "all the responsibility of worsening of inter-Korean relations," adding that he was "sorry for not being able to fulfill many Korean people's demand and hope for peace and prosperity on Korean Peninsula."

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in "accepted” Kim’s resignation, according to a statement by the presidential Blue House, which did not elaborate on the issue.

Pyongyang, meanwhile, threatened the next day to bolster its military presence in and around the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas, and to resume military drills in the border area, where they had been suspended to set the grounds for US talks with the North on its nuclear program.

Inter-Korean tensions reach breaking point amid threats of military action

North Korean has rejected South Korea

Seoul, for its part, responded that North Korea “will pay the price" in case of any military action.

Defector-led groups in the South have regularly sent anti-Pyongyang publicity flyers, along with food, US one-dollar bills, mini radios, and USB sticks containing South Korean TV shows and news clips.

Pyongyang has warned the South several times recently to stop the propaganda campaign and has already severed two valued hotlines with Seoul.

This is while a North Korean defector-led group declared on Friday that it had scrapped a plan to launch hundreds of plastic bottles stuffed with rice, medicine and face masks to North Korea by throwing them into the sea near the border on Sunday.

South Korea’s military also used to send anti-North flyers across the demilitarized zone, but the publicity effort ended in 2010.

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