South Korea on Wednesday switched off loudspeakers that had been broadcasting K-pop songs, news and other propaganda into North Korea for the past year — one of the first concrete steps taken by the newly elected leader, Lee Jae-myung, to improve inter-Korean ties.
Mr. Lee ordered his military to turn off the high-powered loudspeakers on Wednesday afternoon to “help restore trust in South-North Korean relations and build peace on the Korean Peninsula,” said Kang Yu-jung, Mr. Lee’s spokeswoman.
Inter-Korean relations plunged to their lowest point in many years under Mr. Lee’s impeached predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol, as the countries escalated a tit-for-tat exchange across the border. Mr. Yoon supported the idea of spreading outside information into the isolated North. He allowed activists in the South — most of them defectors from the North — to launch large balloons loaded with propaganda leaflets that contained news and bitter criticism of the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, calling him “a bloodthirsty dictator” or “pig.”
North Korea bristled at the balloons and retaliated last year by sending balloons loaded with cigarette butts and other trash into the South.
Mr. Yoon’s government responded by turning on its propaganda loudspeakers a year ago, bombarding North Korean soldiers and villagers along the border with K-pop music and news. The North amped up its own loudspeakers, broadcasting eerie noises that South Korean villagers on the border found so irritable that they installed double-pane windows and other sound insulation at home.
By switching off its loudspeakers first on Wednesday, Mr. Lee’s government essentially proposed a cease-fire in the loudspeaker war. South Korean military officials said on Wednesday that they were monitoring the border to see if the North would reciprocate by turning off its loudspeakers.