Former unification ministers and officials gathered together Wednesday and urged the government to help prevent defector groups from sending anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets to North Korea. The emergency meeting, hosted by the Democratic Party at the National Assembly, comes amid renewed inter-Korean tensions after the North flew hundreds of trash-carrying balloons across the border into the South since late May in what it claims is a response to anti-Pyongyang leafleting. "The Yoon Suk Yeol government appears to be in some ways neglecting and abetting (the leafleting campaign) in the name of freedom of expression," former Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok said. Former National Intelligence Service chief Park Jie-won also stressed that South Korea should respect the 2018 inter-Korean military pact even if the North fails to honor it. "I don't understand why the Yoon Suk Yeol government is carrying on with this foolish policy of giving paper and receiving trash," he said. The North's trash-carrying bal loons eventually led South Korea to fully suspend a 2018 inter-Korean tension reduction pact earlier this month and resume propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts near the border for the first time in six years. Also attending the meeting were Moon Chung-in, a former special security affairs adviser to former President Moon Jae-in, as well as former Unification Ministers Lim Dong-won and Jeong Se-hyun. Defector groups in South Korea have sent balloons carrying leaflets and other goods to the North, although such acts are banned in the country under a law that was legislated during the previous administration to help reduce tensions in the border regions. Source: Yonhap News Agency
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