August 4, 2025 | 02:36 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - South Korea's military said on Monday, August 4, 2025, that they have started to remove loudspeakers used to broadcast K-pop music and news to North Korea as part of Seoul's effort to ease tensions with its neighbor.
"Starting today, the military has begun removing the loudspeakers," said Lee Kyung-ho, a spokesperson for the South Korean Ministry of Defense, to reporters, as reported by CNA and ABC News.
"It is a practical measure aimed at helping ease tensions with the North, provided that such actions do not compromise the military's state of readiness."
Lee Kyung-ho did not give specific details on how the removed loudspeakers would be stored or whether the loudspeakers could be relocated to the border immediately if tensions escalate again between the two nations. There were no discussions between the militaries of both countries prior to South Korea's decision to remove the loudspeakers, Lee said in a briefing.
North Korea, which is highly sensitive to outside criticism about its authoritarian leadership and its third-generation ruler, Kim Jong Un, did not immediately comment on South Korea's move.
All loudspeakers installed along the border will be dismantled by the end of this week, he added, without revealing the exact number to be dismantled.
Both countries, still technically at war, halted their propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, said Seoul's military in June after President Lee Jae-myung was elected.
In the same month, Seoul's military said Pyongyang had stopped broadcasting bizarre and unsettling sounds along the border, which had become a major nuisance to local residents of South Korea, a day after South Korea's loudspeakers were no longer operational.
President Lee, who was recently elected after his predecessor was impeached over a failed martial law, has ordered the military to stop the broadcasts in an bid to "restore trust."
Relations between the two Koreas have been at one of the lowest points in recent years, with Seoul taking a hardline stance against Pyongyang, as it grows closer to Moscow following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The South Korean government had previously started the broadcasts last year in response to a series of trash-filled balloons flown south by Pyongyang.
These loudspeakers blared propaganda messages and K-pop songs, a playlist clearly designed to stir emotions in Pyongyang.
Kim's government is intensifying a campaign to erase the influence of South Korean popular culture and language among the populace in an effort to bolster his family's dynasty's grip on power.
The psychological warfare further exacerbates tensions that have heated up due to North Korea's ongoing nuclear program and South Korea's efforts to expand joint military exercises with the United States as well as their trilateral security cooperation with Japan.
However, Lee promised to improve relations with North Korea and reduce tension on the peninsula.
Despite putting forward a diplomatic approach, North Korea has refused to engage in dialogues with its neighbor.
"If the ROK ... expected that it could reverse all the results it had made with a few sentimental words, nothing is more serious miscalculation than it," Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said last week using South Korea's official name.
Her remarks suggest that North Korea, now preoccupied with expanding cooperation with Russia regarding the war in Ukraine, feels no urgency to resume diplomacy with Seoul and Washington in the near future.
Lee said he would strive for talks with North Korea without preconditions, following the freeze in the era of Yoon Suk Yeol.
Both countries technically remain at war, as the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 ended with a ceasefire, not a peace treaty.
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