North Korea to launch balloons loaded with ‘retaliatory’ leaflets into South

North Korea is prepared to launch thousands of balloons carrying millions of “retaliatory” leaflets to its southern neighbor as inter-Korean relations take a nosedive.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) will soon distribute 12 million leaflets to South Korea “to make them pay dearly for their crime,” the official Korean Central News Agency KCNA) said on Monday as quoted by Xinhua news agency.

“As of June 22, various equipment and means of distributing leaflets, including over 3,000 balloons of various types capable of scattering leaflets deep inside South Korea, have been prepared,” and 12 million leaflets of all kinds have been printed out, the report said.

“The preparations for the largest-ever distribution of leaflets against the enemy are almost complete,” the report said, adding that “the time for retaliatory punishment is drawing near.”

Recently, Pyongyang cut off all communication lines with Seoul and blew up a liaison office building near the border with South Korea to demonstrate its outrage at the ongoing distribution of anti-Pyongyang leaflets by defectors and other activists in the South.

Seoul: Bolton’s memoir distorted

Just ahead of the release of a book by former White House national security adviser John Bolton on Tuesday, South Korea protested that what Bolton has reflected of the negotiations between US President Donald Trump and the two Koreas’ leaders are inaccurate and a distortion of facts.

“It does not reflect accurate facts and substantially distorts facts,” South Korea’s national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, said in a statement referring to Bolton’s revelations in regard to the meetings and top-level consultations held before and after the summits between the leaders.

Bolton has in his memoir, titled “The Room Where It Happened”, given details surrounding the three meetings between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to media outlets that have released excerpts of the book.

According to Bolton, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who was keen back then on ameliorating inter-Korean relations, had given false hope to both Kim and Trump in order to push his own “unification” agenda.

Bolton has refered to Moon’s perception of the reality of the situation as distorted and “schizophrenic.”

The top official in Moon’s office hit back, saying maybe Bolton himself was “schizophrenic.”

“Perhaps he is in that condition,” Chung said.

Chung refrained from elaborating on what was assessed by Seoul as distorted facts, but noted that the release of Bolton’s book would not only be “dangerous”, but also “violate” the principles of diplomacy.

“Unilaterally publishing consultations made based on mutual trust violates the basic principles of diplomacy and could severely damage future negotiations,” he complained.

Trump and Kim met for the first time in Singapore in June 2018, as part of efforts to press North Korea to give up its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

But their second summit, in Vietnam in early 2019, collapsed when Trump rejected an offer by Kim to lift some of the crippling sanctions in return for Pyonyang’s dismantling of a nuclear facility.

Bolton has reportedly written in his memoir that Kim’s decision to dismantle the facility was a “very meaningful first step” toward “irreversible” denuclearization.