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N. Korea Preparing to Send Anti-South Leaflets, Denouncing Defectors


A South Korean army soldier comes out from their military guard post in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, June 19, 2020.
A South Korean army soldier comes out from their military guard post in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, June 19, 2020.

North Korea is preparing to send anti-South leaflets to South Korea, the state media of the communist country said Saturday.

"Enraged" North Koreans "are actively pushing forward with the preparations for launching a large-scale distribution of leaflets," into the South, KCNA news agency said.

"Every action should be met with proper reaction and only when one experiences it oneself, one can feel how offending it is," the North Korean agency said.

It is the most recent retaliatory act by the North and prompted harsh criticism from the South as tensions between two Koreas have risen.

South Korea's unification ministry said in a statement Saturday that the North’s campaign to send leaflets was "extremely regrettable," and urged it to immediately abandon the plan.

North Korea has blamed defectors from the country for launching leaflets across the border and has threatened military action.

The two Koreas, which are technically at the state of war after the fighting stopped by an armistice in 1953, have engaged in leaflet campaigns for decades.

On Tuesday North Korea used explosives to destroy the building on its side, pretending that Pyongyang was angered by South Korean propaganda leaflets and aid supplies crossing the border into the North.

Inter-Korean relations had frozen for months after the collapse of a summit in Hanoi between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump.

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