North Korea today again threatened to strike South Korean propaganda sites if Seoul carries out an operation to make anti-Pyongyang broadcasts and send leaflets across their heavily armed border. The threat came after South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young told lawmakers on 5 October that his government was considering a plan to disseminate radios in the North so its residents can receive anti-Pyongyang broadcasts sent from the South.
In a message to its South Korean counterpart, the North Korean military said it will mount “physical strikes” if South Korea begins broadcasts and sends leaflets critical of Pyongyang, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. “We do not want tension to intensify, nor will we ever condone any minor provocation or act of war that threatens peace,” the KCNA quoted the unnamed head of the North’s general-level military delegation as saying in the message. “If the South does not stop anti-Pyongyang psychological broadcasts and the dissemination of leaflets, it will be met with our military’s strikes on those sites,” it quoted him as saying.
During its first military talks in two years with South Korea on 30 September, the North made a similar threat.