N. Korea urges S. Korea to stop scattering anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets

A red light has come on in the mood for inter-Korean talks in the New Year, as North Korea on Wednesday raised an issue with the spread of anti-Pyongyang leaflets by South Korean activists. The situation shows signs of repeating the situation in October and November last year when the North called on the South to put a brake on the spread of the leaflets at a time when high-level inter-Korean contacts were collapsing.

The North`s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) claimed in a commentary that the United States and South Korean right-wing conservatives were behind the spread of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets and that Seoul was acquiescing and egging on the “reckless acts of confrontation.” The KCNA argued that “acquiescence is a conspiracy," pressing the South Korean government to clarify its stance on relations between the rival Koreas.

The move is interpreted as Pyongyang’s typical tactics of holding Seoul responsible for the anti-North Korean leaflets and inducing conflicts among South Koreans toward the North. On the same day, the North’s party daily Rodong Sinmun urged Seoul and Washington to stop their joint military exercises.

The South Korean government thinks it is possible that the North could escalate its pressure on Seoul, starting with the KCNA commentary. There is also a possibility that Pyongyang makes military provocations just as it fired machine gun shots at the location where a group of South Korean activists were sending balloons containing anti-Pyongyang leaflets to the North last October.

Although the leaders of the two Koreas called for paving way for inter-Korean talks in their respective New Year’s messages, the South Korean government is taking an ambiguous attitude toward the leaflets.

“There is no change in the (South Korean) government’s basic position that it cannot restrict the constitutional freedom of expression," said a spokesman at Seoul’s Unification Ministry. "Seoul cannot prohibit activists from scattering anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the North."

Some experts say that the South Korean government should not just sit back and watch the controversies over the leaflets despite its emphasis on a “golden time” in resuming inter-Korean dialogue.