SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea appears to have stopped loudspeakers near the border targeting South Korea, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday.
The JCS said that North Korean loudspeaker broadcasts were not heard on Thursday, and the South Korean military was monitoring Pyongyang’s activities.
Seoul suspended its own loudspeaker broadcasts near the border targeting North Korea on Wednesday, after having resumed propaganda and K-pop blasts last year during a time of growing tension with its neighbor.
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who took office this month vowing to resume dialogue with the North, ordered the move to ease tension, reduce military confrontation and build trust, his spokesperson said, as North Korea has refrained from provocations lately.
Those living near the heavily fortified border have opposed the loudspeaker broadcasts, which they blame for severe noise nuisance.
Seoul’s resumption last July of a round-the-clock campaign of loudspeaker broadcasts was in response to Pyongyang’s launch of balloons carrying trash over the border, the South’s military said at the time.
Pyongyang had said the balloons were retaliation for a propaganda campaign by North Korean defectors and activists in the South who regularly send inflatables with anti-Pyongyang leaflets and other items across the border.
The two Koreas remain technically at war since an armistice ended fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War.
