Military says never considered artillery firing in response to N. Korean trash balloons

South Korea’s military said Thursday it has never considered staging artillery strikes against North Korea to respond to its launches of trash-carrying balloons.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) made the announcement, rejecting a media report that said former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun and members of his close circle possibly prepared for such a strike in response to the North’s continued balloon launches this year.

“The military maintains a firepower readiness posture to immediately take counterfire measures to enemy provocations,” the JCS said in a statement. “The military has never considered actual artillery strikes during the trash balloon situation.”

The report came after police found a notebook belonging to a former intelligence commander that detailed plans to “provoke North Korea into an attack” at the de facto maritime border as part of its investigation into President Yoon Suk Yeol’s botched imposition of martial law on Dec. 3.

Meanwhile, the JCS dismissed another media report that said the spy agency and an elite Army special operations unit shot down North Korean trash balloons with a drone on multiple occasions over the border island of Baengnyeong in the Yellow Sea.

“North Korean balloons don’t usually fly over Baengnyeong Island. Why would we train in an area where they don’t even come?” JCS spokesperson Col. Lee Sung-jun said in a regular briefing.

Lee added that the elite 707th Special Mission Group does not conduct operations with drones.

The National Intelligence Service also rejected the report as “clearly” false, saying it has never shot down a North Korean trash balloon and never received assistance from the 707th Special Mission Group.