A South Korean activists' group said Friday it plans to fly anti-North Korea leaflets across the border this weekend, defying Pyongyang's recent warning against such an act.

In an unusual letter sent to the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae last week, North Korea's National Defense Commission demanded that Seoul block the cross-border spread of anti-Pyongyang leaflets. The North also alluded to retaliation against the leaflet scattering in the faxed letters.

Following the North Korean demand, the Ministry of Unification, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said it plans to ask local activists to suspend their anti-Pyongyang campaigns.

South Korean activists, mostly defectors from North Korea, often float balloons carrying a massive amount of leaflets near the inter-Korean border to denounce and publicize the dire political situation of the North. 

Defying the recent warning from the North, the activists' group, Fighters for Free North Korea, said it plans to send 200,000 leaflets from the border village of Paju on Sunday. 

It is the first leaflet campaign by any local activists following the North Korean demand and is expected to fuel inter-Korean tension on the matter. 

"We will continue to send leaflets despite North Korea's threat because it is more important to let 20 million North Korean people know the truth," Park Sang-hak, the head of the activists group, said. 

He said he has not heard anything from the unification ministry lately and has no plan to talk to ministry officials. 

Responding to the group's plan, the unification ministry said the government has no legal basis to stop civic groups' leaflet activities, repeating its previous official stance. 

"The anti-Pyongyang leaflet issue is something the private sector has to decide for themselves," ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol said in a briefing. "The government's position has not changed and will remain the same." (Yonhap)