UN: S. Korea's propaganda violates armistice, escalates tensions

The installation of speakers and broadcast of propaganda against North Korea from the Demilitarized Zone by Seoul has "violated" the armistice on the Korean Peninsula, the U.S.-led UN Command in South Korea has found.

Such propaganda broadcast against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has "encouraged" Pyongyang to launch more trash balloons, the UN Command said in a memo addressed to South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, daily The Korea Herald reported on Monday.

However, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun called the UN Command findings "unacceptable."

The ministry officials spoke to the UN Command on Oct. 11 and the UN Command officials "reconfirmed" that the South Korean military "committed the violations," triggering a letter of protest from Seoul against the UN Command.

The propaganda broadcast by Seoul has "encouraged, rather than deterred" North Korea's launches of balloons carrying trash toward the South, the UN Command found.

It "gave North Korea an excuse for additional (trash balloon) launches," the UN Command found following its probe into the tit-for-tit propaganda by the divided Koreas.

"The South Korean military did not have the UN Commander's approval" for "entering the Demilitarized Zone, installing the loudspeakers there and playing the propaganda broadcasts," said the command, which is tasked with enforcement of the armistice on the Korean Peninsula.

- 6,283 trash balloons and 108 incidents of GPS jamming by Pyongyang

Pyongyang has launched hundreds of trash balloons inside South Korea, some falling near the presidential palace in the capital Seoul as South Korea restarted broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda along the border.

North Korea has also claimed that the South Korean military flew its unmanned drones over Pyongyang and has warned of "physical force" if such actions were repeated.

The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leading the US to station around 28,500 troops in South Korea.

The UN Command, established on July 24, 1950, continues to oversee armistice conditions following the outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950.

Pyongyang has sent some 6,283 trash balloons on 27 occasions so far, while North Korea has also carried out GPS jamming at least 108 times to date, the report said.

South Korea has defended its actions as "necessary, nonphysical measures of self-defense to deter North Korea's acts of hostility" and that the trash balloons were deemed a breach of the armistice as well.