Seoul AFP-JIJI

South Korean police on Saturday stopped a planned launch of anti-North Korea leaflets across the border, an activist said, as Seoul seeks to open dialogue and defuse soaring tensions with Pyongyang.

The move came as the North issued a fresh threat to bomb any site where leaflets are launched as it accused Seoul of stirring the crisis which has engulfed the Korean Peninsula ever since Pyongyang conducted a rocket test last December and its third nuclear test in February.

Five activists traveling in a pickup truck loaded with 100,000 leaflets were surrounded by some 70 policemen near a hill in the northwestern city of Gimpo after which their vehicle was forcibly towed to the local police station.

¡°The police told us not to send such leaflets in the lead to April 15,¡± the birthday of North Korea¡¯s late founder Kim Il Sung which the North celebrates as one of its most important national holidays, activist Park Sang Hak said.

Police have never before blocked such a launch without previously announcing their intentions in the media, Park said, adding that his group has launched leaflets five times over the past two months.

A police official told Yonhap news agency that Gimpo residents living near the border strongly objected to launching leaflets amid mounting tensions over the North Korea¡¯s nuclear and missile programs.

Park¡¯s group, all defectors from the North, planned to use gas-filled balloons to float the leaflets across the western border.

Pyongyang¡¯s official Internet website Uriminzokkiri said such launches were an ¡°intolerable, provocative campaign¡± aimed at smearing the dignity of its leadership.

¡°If the puppets let ragtag bunches of misfits carry out such a circus as leaflet launches, a horrible tragedy would take place,¡± it said. ¡°At a moment when even a single rubbish leaflet lands on our side, the origin of the provocation will be blown up.¡±