N. Korea issues further warnings over leaflets: legislator

By Shin Hae-in
SEOUL, Nov. 20 (Yonhap) -- North Korea threatened to take further action to
punish Seoul's conservative government if it does not stop local activists from
flying propaganda leaflets across the border, a South Korean legislator returning
from Pyongyang said Thursday.
The spreading of the leaflets has become a bone of contention between the two
countries recently, with Pyongyang threatening to sharply restrict passage across
their shared border beginning Dec. 1 in retaliation.
"A key North Korean official said his government will get tougher on Seoul, and
asked why the Lee Myung-bak government is so lukewarm on stopping the flyers,"
said Kang Ki-kap, leader of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP). "He seemed dubious
about the Lee government's willingness to stop the flyers."
Kang and 19 other officials from his party returned from a five-day visit to the
North Korean capital late Wednesday, brining back cloudy prospects of repairing
the frayed relations between the two Koreas.
The South Korean government has been persuading civic groups to refrain from
scattering the leaflets, but another set of anti-communist flyers were set off
via balloons earlier Thursday.
Conservative activists here, many of whom are families of those abducted by the
North, often fly balloons into North Korea laden with leaflets printed with
messages denouncing the communist regime and calls for North Koreans to defect to
the South. They have been snubbing repeated requests by the South Korean
government to halt the activity.
hayney@yna.co.kr
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