Seoul: South Korea announced it was dismantling loudspeakers alongside the border with North Korea. The move marks President Lee Jae Myung's first step to ease tensions and pursue dialogue after years of escalating hostilities. South Korea stated it was removing loudspeakers used to blare K-pop and news reports to the North, as the new administration in Seoul attempts to ease tensions with its neighbor.
According to France24.com, the nations, still technically at war, had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone. Seoul's military reported in June, following the election of President Lee Jae Myung, that Pyongyang had stopped transmitting unsettling noises along the border, which had been a significant nuisance for South Korean locals, shortly after the South's loudspeakers fell silent.
The number of loudspeakers to be removed was not disclosed, but a Yonhap news agency report suggested it was about 20, though the defense ministry declined to verify this. Handout photos released by the ministry show soldiers wearing body armor unloading sets of speakers as part of the dismantling process.
Newly elected President Lee ordered the military to stop the broadcasts to "restore trust" between the two Koreas. Relations had been at a low point, with Seoul adopting a hard line toward Pyongyang, which has moved closer to Moscow after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Previously, the two Koreas engaged in a tit-for-tat propaganda war, with the North sending trash-filled balloons southwards in retaliation for propaganda balloons launched by South Korean activists. In response, then-president Yoon Suk Yeol ordered the resumption of border loudspeaker broadcasts, which included K-pop tunes and international news. This led to North Korea transmitting strange sounds along the frontier, unsettling South Korean residents.
President Lee has taken a different approach since his election in June, requesting civic groups to cease sending anti-North propaganda leaflets. "We have strongly urged civic groups to halt leaflet activities in order to foster peace and ensure the safety of residents in border areas," Koo Byung-sam, spokesman of the Unification Ministry, stated at a press briefing.
Despite these diplomatic efforts, the North has rejected pursuing dialogue with its neighbor. Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, recently stated, "If the ROK... expected that it could reverse all the results it had made with a few sentimental words, nothing is more serious miscalculation than it."
The two countries remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War concluded with an armistice, not a peace treaty.