South Korea starts taking down border loudspeakers in effort to reduce tensions with North Korea

South Korea began dismantling its border loudspeakers used to blare propaganda into North Korea, officials said on August 4. The decision comes less than two months after the government halted such broadcasts in an effort to de-escalate inter-Korean tensions.

The Ministry of National Defense said it would remove about 20 fixed loudspeakers within the next two to three days.

“We are implementing tangible steps to ease tensions between the two Koreas within a scope that does not affect our military readiness,” the ministry said in a statement.

The military had already halted broadcasts on June 11, shortly after the inauguration of the Lee Jae Myung administration.

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, who took office on July 25, said during his inauguration speech that the suspension of the Cold War-era broadcasts was a first signal of trust-building between the two sides.

“Just as halting the Cold War-era loudspeaker and psychological warfare broadcasts was the first sign of restoring inter-Korean trust, the South and the North will begin rebuilding shattered trust step by step,” he said.

“As we strive to ease military tensions, the day will come when we sit face to face at the table again,” he added.

A senior government official said on July 23 that Seoul had, in fact, already suspended the broadcasts in early 2024, after Pyongyang stopped its own anti-South broadcasts.

North Korea declared at the end of 2023 that it would treat the South as a hostile state, erasing references to reunification and national kinship from its public discourse. The halt of North Korean broadcasts was seen as part of that shift.

Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee, and sister of North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, offered a tepid response to the South’s recent moves — which include halting the broadcasts, suspending anti-North leaflet campaigns and permitting individual tourism to the North.

She called the gestures “sincere efforts” but added they were “nothing but a reversible turning back of what they should not have done in the first place.”

Unification Ministry spokesperson Koo Byoung-sam responded that the government will “neither be elated nor discouraged” at a briefing in Seoul on August 4.

“The government will not be swayed by North Korea’s reactions and will calmly and consistently pursue efforts to build an inter-Korean relationship based on reconciliation and cooperation, and to realize peace and coexistence on the Korean Peninsula,” he said.

BY SHIN HYE-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]