N.Korea threatens attack over defectors` planned leaflet drop

The North Korean military on Friday threatened to attack a South Korean border area if anti-Pyongyang groups in the South have provocative leaflets dropped over to the communist state next week.

“The Lee Myung-bak group of traitors, keen on escalating confrontation with fellow countrymen, is planning to scatter leaflets slandering the dignity of the supreme leadership of the (Democratic People`s Republic of Korea),” the North`s official Korean Central News Agency quoted the western front command of the (North) Korean People’s Army as saying in a public notice.

“The scattering of leaflets is tantamount to an undisguised psychological warfare…and an unpardonable war provocation,” the command said. “The location is the origin of a provocation that can never be left as is and a target of physical strike to be immediately blown away...South Korean inhabitants at Rimjin (Imjin) Pavilion and its vicinity should evacuate in the expectation of possible damage. The North Korean military never makes empty talk.”

Earlier this week, a newly launched group of former North Korean defectors living in South Korea announced plans to send anti-Pyongyang leaflets at 11 a.m. Monday at Imjin Pavilion in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, South Korean city close to the inter-Korean border.

Park Sang-hak, a leading member of the group, said the leaflets will be sent as planned without caving into the North’s threat.

The South Korean defense minister the same day pledged a direct response to the North’s threat. Kim Kwan-jin told the National Assembly, “If such a thing occurs, our military will launch a perfect counterattack on the origin of the provocation.”

Saying the South Korean military is in a perfect state of readiness, Kim added that the North also made a similar threat last year and that his ministry responded that it would “annihilate” the origin of the attack. The Stalinist nation threatened several times to attack the South last year if South Korean civic groups sent anti-Pyongyang leaflets. The latest threat is the North`s first since young leader Kim Jong Un took power early this year.

The threat is believed to be the North`s attempt to raise security fears in the South ahead of the December presidential election in the latter and highlight the “war versus peace” frame to help a candidate more favorable to the North win.

Certain experts say the threat is a response to President Lee Myung-bak’s comment made Thursday in his visit to the frontline island Yeonpyeong that Pyongyang cannot provoke Seoul if South Korea resolves to retaliate “a hundred times or thousand times” against a provocation.

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