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Seoul to dismantle loudspeakers along North Korean border to 'reduce tensions'

Iran Press TV

Monday, 04 August 2025 6:34 AM

South Korea's military has announced that it will commence the removal of loudspeakers utilized for propaganda broadcasts from the border with North Korea on Monday, seeking to "reduce tensions."

South Korea's new president, Lee Jae-myung, who took office in early June, has ordered an end to anti-Pyongyang propaganda on the border on July 11. North Korea reciprocated by halting its noise broadcast.

On July 21, South Korea's National Intelligence Service stopped radio broadcasts aimed at North Korea, which had been going on for decades.

Lee has been extending an olive branch, unlike his hawkish predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol, who pursued a tough stance against Pyongyang and was eventually removed from office by the opposition forces.

During his inauguration at Rotunda Hall in the National Assembly in Seoul on June 4, South Korea's Lee promised to reopen dialogue with North Korea and restore peace on the Korean Peninsula.

However, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's sister, Kim Yo Jong, has rejected the prospect of dialogue with South Korea, criticizing Seoul's "blind trust" in its alliance with the United States.

Late last month, she said that Pyongyang had "no interest" in efforts by the administration of South Korean President Lee to improve relations between the neighbors, highlighting that South Korea's ongoing military ties with Washington made any efforts at rapprochement pointless.

"When only the 50-odd days since Lee Jae Myung's assumption to power are brought to light ... their blind trust to the ROK-US alliance and their attempt to stand in confrontation with the DPRK are little short of their predecessor's," Kim said, using the official acronym for North Korea.

"We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither the reason to meet nor the issue to be discussed," she added.

On suspension of the loudspeakers, she noted that it's nothing but a reversible turning back of what they should not have done in the first place."

"In other words, it is not the work worthy of appreciation," she said.

Kim pointed out that if the new South Korean president thinks he can sweet-talk them into reconciling the DPRK-ROK relations, he is making a "serious miscalculation."

She mentioned the upcoming summertime South Korea-US military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.

In October, North Korea revised its Constitution to declare the South a "hostile state" after Kim Jong Un called for the rejection of the long-held official goal of reunification.