South Korea completes dismantling anti-North Korea loudspeakers along border

Seoul, Aug 6 The South Korean military has completed removing loudspeakers for propaganda broadcasts against North Korea along the heavily fortified border, military officials said Wednesday.

About 20 fixed speakers installed in the front-line areas had all been dismantled as of Tuesday afternoon, nearly a day after the military began removing them on Monday in an effort to ease inter-Korean tensions, according to officials.

The removed speakers are to be stored in military units, Yonhap news agency reported.

The move came less than two months after the South Korean President, Lee Jae Myung ordered the suspension of loudspeaker broadcasts in frontline areas as part of efforts to mend frayed ties with the North.

The North has since responded by suspending its own noise-blaring campaigns against the South in June.

However, North Korea has yet to show any signs of removing its own loudspeakers along the border areas in response to the South's removal, according to military officials.

North Korea has long bristled against the military's loudspeaker broadcasts and leaflets sent by activists over fears of outside information that could pose a threat to its ruling regime.

But under the former conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration, South Korea turned on the loudspeaker campaign for the first time in six years in June last year as Pyongyang launched thousands of trash-carrying balloons across the border. Seoul had previously conducted the campaign on an on-and-off basis following North Korea's fourth nuclear test in 2016.

Since taking office in June, Lee has taken measures to revive inter-Korean ties that remain practically severed since the North declared in late 2023 that the two Koreas are two separate "hostile" countries and moved to dismantle symbols of inter-Korean relations and unification.

In addition to halting the military's loudspeaker broadcasts, Lee has called on civic groups to suspend their distribution of anti-Pyongyang leaflets, expressing hope that the reconciliatory gestures could pave the way for engagement with the North.

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