North Korea reinstalling massive propaganda speakers along DMZ

The North Korean military is erecting massive loudspeakers along its southern border to blast angry propaganda into South Korea in the latest sign that relations between the two have soured since a brief thaw that surrounded denuclearization talks in recent years.

Military officials from the South said Monday that the speakers are being erected “in multiple places” inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the Korean peninsula.

“Such moves were spotted in more than 10 regions, which have taken place simultaneously,” a senior military official said, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.

Speakers had been used by both the North and the South in past periods of heightened tension, but both agreed to remove them under a 2018 agreement following a summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The two also agreed at the time to halt the use of balloons to float propaganda leaflets at each other across the DMZ.

The agreement appears to have collapsed in recent weeks.

In early June, the North began accusing the South of failing to stop South Korean activists from floating anti-North Korea leaflets across the DMZ.

Then, last week, the North Korean military blew up a key inter-Korean liaison office in the border town of Kaesong that had been a symbol of potential reconciliation between the two Koreas, which have been divided since the early-1950s Korean war.

The latest souring of relations has been building for months, coinciding the North’s resistance to the Trump administration-led push for a major denuclearization agreement with Pyongyang.

Talks toward such an agreement have been stalled since the February 2019 Hanoi Summit between President Trump and Mr. Kim broke down.

Mr. Trump has said he walked away because the North Koreans demanded sweeping sanctions relief in exchange for only a limited commitment to destroy part of their nuclear arsenal, which has been clandestinely built up in violation of decades of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The past year has seen North Korea carry out waves of short-range missile tests and steadily increase its regional provocations, particularly toward South Korea, the leading U.S. ally in the push for denuclearization.

“We are closely monitoring the North’s moves to wage psychological warfare. We maintain a tight readiness posture to properly respond to any eventualities,” a top South Korean military official told Yonhap on Monday.

In addition to the loudspeakers, the North has said it is preparing to float 12 million leaflets in a vast psychological campaign against the South.

Yonhap reported that South Korea, in response, is reviewing the option of restoring its own loudspeakers. The South removed its loudspeaker broadcast equipment installed in around 40 front-line areas, including the border town of Paju, in May 2018 in accordance with the agreement made with the North at the time.