SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s military has shut down loudspeakers broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda along the inter-Korean border, marking the new liberal government’s first concrete step toward easing tensions between the war-divided rivals.
The South resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts in June last year following a yearslong pause in retaliation for North Korea flying trash-laden balloons toward the South in a psychological warfare campaign.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday the move was part of efforts to “to restore trust in inter-Korean relations and promote peace on the Korean Peninsula.”
North Korea, which is extremely sensitive to any outside criticism of its authoritarian leadership and its third-generation ruler, Kim Jong Un, did not immediately comment on the step by Seoul.
From May to November last year, North Korea flew thousands of balloons toward South Korea to drop substances such as wastepaper, cloth scraps, cigarette butts and even manure. The North said its balloon campaign came after South Korean activists sent over balloons filled with anti-North Korean leaflets, as well as USB sticks filled with popular South Korean songs and dramas.
Trash carried by at least one North Korean balloon fell on the South Korean presidential compound in July, raising concerns about the vulnerability of key South Korean facilities. Officials said the balloon contained no dangerous material and no one was hurt.
South Korea, in response to the North Korean balloons, reactivated its front-line loudspeakers to blast propaganda messages and K-pop songs toward the North. The playlist was clearly designed to strike the nerve of Pyongyang, as Kim’s government since the COVID-19 pandemic has been intensifying a campaign to eliminate the influence of South Korean pop culture and language amongst the population in a bid to strengthen his family’s dynastic rule.
The Cold War-style psychological warfare campaigns added to tensions fueled by North Korea’s growing nuclear ambitions and South Korean efforts to expand joint military exercises with the United States and strengthen three-way security cooperation with Japan.
South Korea’s new liberal president, Lee Jae-myung, who took office last week after winning a snap election to replace ousted conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, has vowed to improve relations with Pyongyang, which reacted furiously to Yoon’s hardline policies and shunned dialogue.
In his inaugural address last week, Lee vowed to reopen communication channels with North Korea to ease tensions. But prospects for an early resumption of dialogue between the rival Koreas remain dim, as North Korea has consistently rejected offers from South Korea and the United States since 2019, when nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang collapsed over sanctions-related disagreements. North Korea’s priority in foreign policy is now firmly with Russia, which has received thousands of North Korean troops and large amounts of military equipment in recent months for its warfighting in Ukraine.
Yoon, who was removed from office in April over his short-lived imposition of martial law in December, had focused on strengthening military partnerships with Washington and Tokyo and on securing stronger U.S. assurances of a swift and decisive nuclear response to defend the South against a North Korean attack.
In a fierce reaction to Yoon’s policies, Kim in January last year declared that he was abandoning the long-standing goals of a peaceful unification with the South and instructed the rewriting of the North’s constitution to cement the South as a permanent “principal enemy.”
Kim Tong-hyung, The Associated Press
