MOSCOW, November 12 (RIA Novosti) – South Korea’s opposition party has proposed a bill to limit a cross-border leaflet campaign against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Xinhua reported Wednesday.
The proposed bill would require the Unification Ministry’s approval prior to launching leaflets across the border, the news agency reported.
Leaflets criticizing North Korea’s human rights conditions have been floated into North Korea in giant helium balloons intermittently for several years, disrupting talks between the two sides and causing an exchange of gunfire at the border.
"The recent scattering of anti-DPRK leaflets has hampered inter-Korean relations, which might have entered a reconciliatory mood," Representative Yoon Hu-duk of the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy party was quoted as saying.
The most recent development saw a South Korean civic group – in part composed of defectors from the north – launch 10 balloons carrying hundreds of thousands anti-Pyongyang leaflets on October 10. The incident led to the exchange of cross-border fire.
Following the incident, North Korea withdrew from the high-level talks between the two countries.
