\n<\/p>\n
Seoul removes propaganda loudspeakers to signal a shift in policy under President Lee\u2019s administration.<\/em><\/p>\n South Korean authorities began removing loudspeakers blaring anti-North Korea broadcasts along the country\u2019s border, Seoul\u2019s Ministry of National Defence has said, as the new government of President Lee Jae-myung seeks to ease tensions with Pyongyang.<\/p>\n \u201cStarting today, the military has begun removing the loudspeakers,\u201d Lee Kyung-ho, spokesman of South Korea\u2019s Defence Ministry, told reporters on Monday.<\/p>\n Shortly after he took office in June, Lee\u2019s administration switched off propaganda broadcasts criticising the North Korean regime as it looks to revive stalled dialogue with its neighbour.<\/p>\n But North\u00a0Korea\u00a0recently rebuffed the overtures and said it had\u00a0no interest\u00a0in talking to South\u00a0Korea.<\/p>\n The countries remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, and relations have deteriorated in the last few years.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a practical measure aimed at helping ease tensions with the North, provided that such actions do not compromise the military\u2019s state of readiness,\u201d the ministry said in a statement on Monday.<\/p>\n All loudspeakers set up along the border will be dismantled by the end of the week, he added, but did not disclose the exact number that would be removed.<\/p>\n President Lee, recently elected after his predecessor was impeached over an abortive martial law declaration, had ordered the military to stop the broadcasts in a bid to \u201crestore trust\u201d.<\/p>\n Relations between the two Koreas had been at one of their lowest points in years, with Seoul taking a hard line towards Pyongyang, which has drawn ever closer to Moscow in the wake of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n The previous government started the broadcasts last year in response to a barrage of trash-filled balloons flown southward by Pyongyang.<\/p>\n But Lee promised to improve relations with North Korea and reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula.<\/p>\n Despite his diplomatic overtures, North Korea has rejected pursuing dialogue with its neighbour.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the ROK\u2026 expected that it could reverse all the results it had made with a few sentimental words, nothing is [a] more serious miscalculation\u2026,\u201d Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said last week, using the acronym for South Korea\u2019s official name, Republic of Korea.<\/p>\n Lee has said that he would seek talks with North Korea without conditions, following a deep freeze under his predecessor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Seoul removes propaganda loudspeakers to signal a shift in policy under President Lee\u2019s administration. South Korean authorities began removing loudspeakers blaring anti-North Korea broadcasts along the country\u2019s border, Seoul\u2019s Ministry of National Defence has said, as the new government of President Lee Jae-myung seeks to ease tensions with Pyongyang. \u201cStarting today, the military has begun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[3827,267,5105,3799,1771,7565,150,122,7295],"class_list":{"0":"post-13904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-border","9":"tag-conflict","10":"tag-dismantles","11":"tag-ease","12":"tag-korea","13":"tag-loudspeakers","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-south","16":"tag-tensions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}