The South Korean government called for a halt in sending anti-North Korea leaflets into the communist state, hours after Pyongyang threatened to abandon inter-Korean deals to diffuse military tension unless Seoul intervenes.

Unification Ministry spokesperson Yoh Sang-key said on Thursday that such campaigns threaten the lives and property of residents in the border region, stressing they have aggravated cross-border tensions in the past.

The spokesperson added that a majority of the leaflets found south of the border have also led to pollution in the area.

Seoul, meanwhile, is considering measures to fundamentally prevent such activity.

Earlier on Thursday, Kim Yo-jong, the sister of regime leader Kim Jong-un, slammed the campaigns by North Korean defectors, threatening to completely shut down the Gaeseong industrial park and scrap the 2018 military agreement.