North Korea says it will stop sending garbage to the South: Will continue if "anti-North Korean leaflets" arrive

North Korea announced on Sunday, June 2, that it would stop sending balloons carrying garbage across the border into South Korea, but vowed to continue if what they say are "anti-North Korean leaflets" continue to arrive from the South.

"South Korea saw how 'dirty' and 'wasteful' it is to collect garbage after North Korea sent 15 tons of it using 3.500 balloons," North Korea's Vice Defense Minister Kim Kang Il said in a statement carried by state media KCNA. .

South Korea has said it will take "unsustainable" measures against Pyongyang for sending garbage balloons across the border, which could include propaganda from loudspeakers aimed at the North.

The announcement from President Jun Suk Jeol's office comes after a meeting of his National Security Council, called in response to what Seoul claims are more than 700 garbage balloons sent across the border by Pyongyang to disrupt its neighbor.

The Council condemned the balloons, and the simultaneous jamming of the GPS system, as an "irrational provocation".

Seoul has not ruled out resuming loudspeaker propaganda, which it halted in 2018 after a summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, a senior South Korean official told reporters.

North Korea claims that the balloons are retaliation for a propaganda campaign by North Korean defectors to the South, but also by South Korean activists, who regularly sent balloons with anti-Pyongyang leaflets, food, medicine, money and USB sticks with K-pop music videos.

Balloons of Pyongyang's trash, such as cigarette butts, cloth, paper waste and plastic, were found across Seoul overnight, South Korea said.

They state that the army monitors the launch points of the balloons, and conducts reconnaissance from the air to find and collect the balloons, on which large garbage bags are hung.

North Korea sent hundreds of balloons with garbage and cargo labeled as fertilizer across the border on Wednesday, calling them "sincere gifts."

Seoul reacted angrily, saying Pyongyang's move was mean-spirited and dangerous.