SOUTH KOREA threatened today to restart propaganda broadcasts on its border with the North after Pyongyang floated balloons carrying plastic bags of rubbish into Seoul’s territory.

The rubbish balloons, sent on Monday night, were the fifth campaign of such action since late May and are an apparent response to South Korean activists sending political leaflets northwards on balloons.

In a speech yesterday marking the 74th anniversary of the start of the Korean war, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol branded the North’s balloon activities “a despicable and irrational provocation.”

He added that South Korea would maintain firm military readiness to repel any provocations by Pyongyang.

Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Lee Sung Joon told reporters today that the South Korean military was ready to turn on its border loudspeakers again.

A written Joint Chiefs of Staff statement said that officials would examine unspecified strategic operational circumstances and that the broadcasts’ resumption would depend on North Korea’s actions.

Balloon launches and loudspeaker broadcasts were among the campaigns that the two Koreas used against each other during the cold war.