South Korean authorities have begun removing loudspeakers that blare propaganda broadcasts along its border with the North, Seoul’s defence ministry said on Monday, as the new government of President Lee Jae Myung seeks to ease tensions with Pyongyang.
South Korea’s dismantling of the loudspeakers was a “practical measure that can help ease inter-Korean tensions without affecting the military’s readiness posture,” the ministry said in a statement.
Lee Kyung-ho, a spokesperson for the ministry, didn’t share specific details on whether the speakers could be quickly redeployed to the border if tensions flared again. There were no discussions between the two militaries ahead of the decision, Lee said during a briefing.
North Korea, which is extremely sensitive to any outside criticism of its authoritarian leadership and its third-generation ruler, Kim Jong-un, didn’t immediately comment.
Shortly after Lee took office in June, his administration switched off propaganda broadcasts criticising the North Korean regime as it looked to revive stalled dialogue with its neighbour.
Pyongyang – which had reacted furiously to the hardline policies of Lee’s conservative predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol – has rebuffed recent overtures and said it had no interest in talking to South Korea.
Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of the North Korean leader, said last week that Seoul’s “blind trust” in its alliance with the US and its hostility toward North Korea made it no different from Yoon’s administration.
Her comments implied that North Korea – now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia over the war in Ukraine – feels no urgency to resume diplomacy with Seoul and Washington.
Seoul resumed loudspeaker broadcasts in June 2024 after Pyongyang sent nearly a thousand rubbish-filled balloons across the border in the space of a few weeks. The broadcasts would “deliver messages of light and hope to the North Korean military and citizens”, the South said at the time.
South Korea’s broadcasts were blasted from multiple speakers stacked in large racks and included world news and information about democratic and capitalist society with a mix of K-pop music. The sound is believed to travel more than 20km (12.4 miles) into North Korea.
The cold war-style psychological warfare campaign further heightened tensions already inflamed by North Korea’s advancing nuclear program and South Korean efforts to expand joint military exercises with the US and trilateral security cooperation with Japan.
The countries remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean war ended only in a truce, and relations have deteriorated in the last few years.
With Reuters and Associated Press
