SEOUL: South Korean authorities began removing on Monday loudspeakers blaring anti-North Korea broadcasts along the country’s border, Seoul’s defence ministry said, as the new government of President Lee Jae Myung seeks to ease tensions with Pyongyang. Shortly after he took office in June, Lee’s administration switched off propaganda broadcasts criticising the North Korean regime as it looks to revive stalled dialogue with its neighbour.
But North Korea recently rebuffed the overtures and said it had no interest in talking to South Korea.
South Korea’s dismantling of the loudspeakers from Monday is just a “practical measure to help ease tensions between the South and the North,” the ministry said in a statement on Monday. Soldiers could be seen unplugging loudspeakers, mounted together like a wall, and taking them down, photographs provided by the defence ministry show.
Propaganda broadcast through loudspeakers across the border has been used by both sides as relations between South and North Korea have ebbed and flowed over the years. Since Seoul suspended its own loudspeaker broadcasts in June, North Korea appears to have stopped its broadcasts, which had disturbed South Korean border residents for months, officials in the South say. — Reuters
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