Border propaganda loudspeakers to be removed – SKorea
SEOUL— South Korea will remove propaganda-broadcasting loudspeakers from the border with North Korea this week, officials said yesterday, as the rivals move to follow through with their leaders' summit declaration that produced reconciliation steps without a breakthrough in the nuclear standoff.
During their historic meeting Friday at a Korean border village, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to end hostile acts against each other along their tense border, establish a liaison office and resume reunions of separated families. They also agreed to achieve a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, but failed to produce specific time frames and disarmament steps.
Seoul's Defense Ministry said it would pull back dozens of its front-line loudspeakers on Tuesday before media cameras. Ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyunsoo Seoul expects Pyongyang to do the same.
South Korea had already turned off its loudspeakers ahead of Friday's summit talks, and North Korea responded by halting its own broadcasts.
The two Koreas had been engaged in Cold Warera psychological warfare since the North's fourth nuclear test in early 2016. Seoul began blaring antiPyongyang broadcasts and K-Pop songs via border loudspeakers, and Pyongyang quickly matched the South's action with its own border broadcasts and launches of balloons carrying anti-South leaflets.
Seoul's announcement came a day after it said Kim told Moon during the summit that he would shut down his country's only known nuclear testing site and allow outside experts and journalists to watch the process.
South Korean officials also cited Kim as saying he would be willing to give up his nuclear programs if the United States commits to a formal end to the Korean War and a pledge not to attack the North. Kim had already suspended his nuclear and missile tests while offering to put his nukes up for negotiations.
The closing of the Punggy-ri test site, where all six of North Korea's atomic bomb tests occurred, could be an eye-catching disarmament step by Pyongyang. But there is still deep skepticism over whether Kim is truly willing to negotiate away the nukes that his country has built after decades of struggle and sacrifice.