South Korea stops blasting K-Pop and propaganda at North
South Korea's military has been ordered to stop playing K-Pop music and political propaganda in the direction of North Korea through loudspeakers.
Seoul suspended the broadcasts along its demilitarised border on Wednesday morning as part of attempts by its new Left-wing government to cool tensions with its neighbour.
A spokesman for South Korea's defence ministry said: 'The decision was made as part of efforts to carry out the promise of restoring inter-Korean trust and peace on the Korean Peninsula.'
The two countries are technically still at war because, despite a ceasefire in 1953, no formal peace treaty was ever signed to officially end the Korean War.
Lee Jae-myung, who was elected as South Korea's new president last week, has vowed to restart talks with Pyongyang, which had considered the broadcasts to be an act of war and previously threatened to blow the loudspeakers up.
Mr Lee said in his inaugural speech that he would 'open a communication channel with North Korea and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula through talks and co-operation'.
The broadcasts, which have been running on and off since the 1960s, had included a wide range of music and messages, from pop songs to more sensitive segments on democracy and capitalism.
North Korea has also played broadcasts over the border, including messages condemning South Korea and its allies, but these have tended to be harder to hear because of the poor quality of the speakers used.
The broadcasts on the South Korean side were paused in 2018 after the North sent balloons filled with waste paper, cloth scraps, cigarette butts and manure over the border. They resumed last summer.
A couple of weeks after they restarted, a new rubbish-filled balloon fell on the South Korean presidential compound, prompting questions about the security of the country's key facilities.
The balloons had been sent in retaliation for propaganda drops by South Korea over the years, which have included USB sticks of television dramas and leaflets criticising the North Korean regime.
Earlier this week, South Korea's ministry of unification also called for the end of the leaflet campaigns.
However, it comes amid efforts by Pyongyang in recent years to bolster its information war and restrict outside information.
The regime passed a law in 2020 which increased the punishment for anyone caught consuming or sharing foreign media, with unverified reports that some individuals had even been executed.
In 2023, Pyongyang also outlawed common South Korean phrases and made it illegal to speak in a South Korean accent.
Mr Lee's overtures to the North are a departure from the more hardline approach of Yoon Suk Yeol, his predecessor.
Mr Yoon, who was impeached following a short-lived declaration of martial law in December, had ended engagement with Pyongyang and threatened to destroy the regime if it ever deployed nuclear weapons.
North Korea has yet to comment on the loudspeakers announcement, though it has previously rejected efforts from both Seoul and the United States to resume engagement.
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