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SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea’s subject has unopen down loudspeakers broadcasting anti-North Korea propaganda on the inter-Korean border, marking the caller wide government’s archetypal factual measurement toward easing tensions betwixt the war-divided rivals.
The South resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts successful June past twelvemonth pursuing a yearslong intermission successful retaliation for North Korea flying trash-laden balloons toward the South successful a intelligence warfare campaign.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that the determination was portion of efforts to “to reconstruct spot successful inter-Korean relations and beforehand bid connected the Korean Peninsula.”
North Korea, which is highly delicate to immoderate extracurricular disapproval of its authoritarian enactment and its third-generation ruler, Kim Jong Un, didn't instantly remark connected the measurement by Seoul.
From May to November past year, North Korea flew astir 7,000 balloons toward South Korea successful 32 abstracted events to driblet substances specified arsenic wastepaper, cloth scraps, cigaret butts and adjacent manure. The North said that its balloon run came aft South Korean activists sent implicit balloons filled with anti-North Korean leaflets, arsenic good arsenic USB sticks filled with fashionable South Korean songs and dramas.
Trash carried by astatine slightest 1 North Korean balloon fell connected the South Korean statesmanlike compound successful July, raising concerns astir the vulnerability of cardinal South Korean facilities. Officials said that the balloon contained nary unsafe worldly and nary 1 was hurt.
South Korea, successful effect to the North Korean balloons, reactivated its front-line loudspeakers to blast propaganda messages and K-pop songs toward the North. The playlist was intelligibly designed to onslaught the nervus of Pyongyang, arsenic Kim’s authorities since the COVID-19 pandemic has been intensifying a run to destruct the power of South Korean popular civilization and connection among the colonisation successful a bid to fortify his family’s dynastic rule.
The Cold War-style intelligence warfare campaigns added to tensions fueled by North Korea’s increasing atomic ambitions and South Korean efforts to grow associated subject exercises with the United States and fortify three-way information practice with Japan.
South Korea’s caller wide president, Lee Jae-myung, who took bureau past week aft winning an aboriginal predetermination to regenerate ousted blimpish Yoon Suk Yeol, has vowed to amended relations with Pyongyang, which reacted furiously to Yoon’s hard-line policies and shunned dialogue.
During the predetermination campaign, Lee promised to halt the loudspeaker broadcasts, arguing that they created unnecessary tensions and discomfort for South Korean residents successful borderline towns. In caller months, those residents had complained astir North Korea’s retaliatory broadcasts, which included howling animals, pounding gongs and different irritating sounds.
In a briefing connected Monday, South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, besides called for South Korean civilian activists to halt flying anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets crossed the border. Such activities “could heighten tensions connected the Korean Peninsula and endanger the lives and information of residents successful borderline areas,” said Koo Byoungsam, the ministry’s spokesperson.
In his inaugural code past week, Lee vowed to reopen connection channels with North Korea to easiness tensions. But prospects for an aboriginal resumption of dialog betwixt the rival Koreas stay dim, arsenic North Korea has consistently rejected offers from South Korea and the United States since 2019, erstwhile atomic talks betwixt Washington and Pyongyang collapsed implicit sanctions-related disagreements.
North Korea’s priority successful overseas policy is present firmly with Russia, which has received thousands of North Korean troops and ample amounts of subject instrumentality successful caller months for its warfare with Ukraine.
Yoon, who was removed from bureau successful April implicit his short-lived imposition of martial law successful December, had focused connected strengthening subject partnerships with Washington and Tokyo and connected securing stronger U.S. assurances of a swift and decisive atomic effect to support the South against a North Korean attack.
In a fierce absorption to Yoon’s policies, Kim successful January 2024 declared that helium 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 arsenic a permanent “principal enemy.”
English (US) ·