SEOUL, South Korea — Rather than the cross-border attack feared by South Koreans, a balloon loaded with garbage bags flew from North Korea and crashed into the presidential palace, security officials said Wednesday.
The Presidential Guard Bureau in Seoul told NBC News in a phone call that they had tracked the balloon in real time as it was carried by winds across the border with the nuclear-armed neighbor and eventually landed at the presidential palace in the South Korean capital.
The agency added that there was no danger.
Earlier this year, balloons emerged as a nasty new weapon of war. North Korea has been releasing thousands of balloons equipped with garbage bags since May, creating a new source of tension between the two Koreas. Some of the balloons have been filled with bottles, old batteries, and even fertilizer, but recently some have simply been carrying waste paper.
North Korea said the launch was in retaliation for years of activists and defectors who have used balloons to send propaganda leaflets. Other balloons were stuffed with $1 worth of narcotics and painkillers such as paracetamol.
South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said in an interview with Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun on Wednesday that the South Korean military is “closely monitoring North Korea's movements.”
He added that “the North Korean military may open fire on balloons released by South Korean activists and their sources.”
But it is unlikely that Pyongyang's military would be able to detect the exact time and location of the South Korean balloons, the Defense Ministry told NBC News.
North Korea released balloons again on Sunday in what South Korea called a vulgar and shameful act, and the latter retaliated by blasting K-pop from loudspeakers across the border.
“We broadcast K-POP and happy lifestyles [in South Korea]”We are communicating with North Korea through loudspeakers about the situation and developments in South Korea,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said at a briefing on Tuesday, while Joint Chiefs spokesman Lee Seong-jun said he expected such broadcasts to stir unrest in the country and encourage more North Koreans to defect.
The broadcast, the first in more than a month, has previously included K-pop songs, weather forecasts, news from South Korea's largest company Samsung and criticism of North Korea's missile program.
The balloon landed away from the presidential palace, but it was the first time it had landed on the presidential grounds, raising concerns about the safety of the main building. Officials did not say whether the balloon was manually guided, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it was carried there by westerly winds.
South Korea has warned people not to touch items in garbage bags.
South Korea's Defense Minister Shin said North Korea “could retaliate by planting landmines, using drones to drop propaganda leaflets, jamming GPS and launching cyber attacks.”
His remarks were made as Belarusian Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov arrived in the North Korean capital on Tuesday.
Both countries are allies of Russia, which has found itself increasingly diplomatically isolated since it launched its invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
North Korea wants to strengthen ties with Belarus to “open a new era,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui as saying on Wednesday, the day after the meeting.
The visit comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a rare state visit to Kim Jong Un last month and signed a mutual defence treaty.
Tensions between the two Koreas have been rising for months, with Kim Jong Un accelerating weapons tests and North Korean soldiers repeatedly and briefly crossing the border, accompanied by warning shots.
Earlier this month, Kim Yo Jang, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, criticized South Korea over “filthy leaflets” found along the border and elsewhere in the North, and suggested the balloon launches would eventually resume.
Satellite images also show North Korea building a wall-like structure along part of the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a 2.5-mile-thick buffer zone, half on each side of the border.
Earlier this year, Kim Jong Un fully suspended a military pact that was agreed between the two countries in 2018. As well as sending balloons, he also reinstated border crossings.
South Korea has resumed aerial surveillance near its border in retaliation for North Korea's satellite launch in November.
Stella Kim reported from Seoul and Michiru Agarwal from Hong Kong.
