North Korea dismantles propaganda loudspeakers from border to ease tensions with South Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s military said Saturday it detected North Korea removing some of its loudspeakers from the inter-Korean border, days after the South dismantled its own front-line speakers used for anti-North Korean propaganda broadcasts, in a bid to ease tensions.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t disclose the sites where the North Koreans were removing speakers and said it wasn’t immediately clear whether the North would take all of them down.

In recent months, South Korean border residents have complained that North Korean speakers blasted irritating sounds, including howling animals and pounding gongs, in a tit-for-tat response to South Korean propaganda broadcasts.

The South Korean military said the North stopped its broadcasts in June after Seoul’s new liberal president, Lee Jae Myung, halted the South’s broadcasts in his government’s first concrete step toward easing tensions between the war-divided rivals. South Korea’s military began removing its speakers from border areas on Monday but didn’t specify how they would be stored or whether they could be quickly redeployed if tensions flared again.

North Korea, which is extremely sensitive to any outside criticism of its authoritarian leadership and its third-generation ruler, Kim Jong Un, didn’t immediately confirm it was taking down its speakers.

South Korea’s previous conservative government resumed daily loudspeaker broadcasts in June last year, following a yearslong pause, in retaliation for North Korea flying trash-laden balloons toward the South.

The speakers blasted propaganda messages and K-pop songs, a playlist designed to strike a nerve in Pyongyang, where Kim has been pushing an intense campaign to eliminate the influence of South Korean pop culture and language among the population in a bid to strengthen his family’s dynastic rule.

The Cold War-style psychological warfare campaigns further heightened tensions already inflamed by North Korea’s advancing nuclear program and South Korean efforts to expand joint military exercises with the United States and their trilateral security cooperation with Japan.

Lee, who took office in June after winning an early election to replace ousted conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, wants to improve relations with Pyongyang, which reacted furiously to Yoon’s hard-line policies and shunned dialogue.

But Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of the North Korean leader, rebuffed overtures by Lee’s government in late July, saying that Seoul’s “blind trust” in the country’s alliance with the United States makes it no different from its conservative predecessor.

She later issued a separate statement dismissing the Trump administration’s intent to resume diplomacy on North Korea’s denuclearizationsuggesting that Pyongyang — now focused on expanding ties with Russia over the war in Ukraine — sees little urgency in resuming talks with Seoul or Washington.

Tensions between the Koreas can possibly rise again later this month, when South Korea and the United States proceed with their annual large-scale combined military exerciseswhich begin on Aug. 18. North Korea labels the allies’ joint drills as invasion rehearsals and often uses them as a pretext to dial up military demonstrations and weapons tests aimed at advancing its nuclear program.