The U.S. “believes in free speech” for South Korean activists who send balloons to North Korea but also understands the need to reduce tensions on the peninsula, the U.S. Ambassador to Seoul said in an interview on Tuesday.

Philip Goldberg made the remarks in the latest episode of the Impossible State podcast by the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS).

While he condemned North Korea’s launch of balloons carrying trash as “outrageous and childish,” the ambassador stated that the current situation on the Korean Peninsula “also has to do with the leaflets that go North.

“We, of course,