hankyoreh

By Park Byong-su, Senior Staff Writer

“North Korea sent a message today using the military hotline in the West Sea area in the name of North Korea’s chief negotiator in inter-Korean military talks,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok on Friday. “On Feb. 27, North Korea threatened to fire directly on the spot in South Korea where leaflets were being launched into North Korea, but this time, they threatened to launch full-scale strikes.”
Prior to this, North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) called the sending of leaflets a form of psychological warfare and an act of war provocation that cannot be hidden against a warring side, and reported that with South Korea continuing to launch leaflets while craftily moving the location of the launches for fear of the North Korean response, the North Korea military officially warns that it would expand the previously announced aimed strikes to full-scale strikes wherever and whenever.
The military meaning of full-scale strikes is unclear. It appears however, that if aimed strikes meant attacks on the area where the propaganda leaflets are being launched at the time of their launch, full-scale strikes means attacks on a wider area regardless of whether the launch has occurred or already occurred. North Korea is believed to be raising its threat level as North Korea-related groups in South Korea have recently moved to continue the launch of propaganda leaflets into North Korea despite North Korea’s threat of aimed fire.

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