North Korea and South Korea use loudspeakers as a weapon of cognitive warfare. The two states on the Korean peninsula use the demilitarized zone (DMZ), a de facto border that extends along 250 kilometers, to provoke each other.
The North Korean country usually broadcasts in the early hours long transmissions of military propaganda and annoying animal noises. However, the South Korean country opts to broadcast K-Pop songs, prohibited in the neighboring country.
Following the election last June of the new president of South Korea, Lee Jae-myung, the president committed to reopening dialogue with the regime of North Korean President Kim Jong-un.
As a gesture of goodwill, South Korean military personnel in early August began to remove the devices that were placed on the front line of the border.
Last weekend, from Seoul, they claimed to have seen North Korean soldiers also removing their own loudspeakers.
However, this Thursday Kim Yo-jong, deputy director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the ruling Workers' Party and sister of the North Korean leader, denied the news. "North Korea has never removed the loudspeakers and is not willing to do so," Yo-jong asserts in a statement published by the state media KCNA. In it, the deputy director points out that with the claim of the withdrawal of South Korea's loudspeakers, the public is being "deceived."
"We have clarified on several occasions that we have no intention of improving relations with South Korea.This stance will be enshrined in our Constitution in the future," concludes the president's sister.
However, this week, the South Korean president reiterated that he maintains hopes that the two Koreas can "gradually reopen dialogue and communication."
Utilization of South Korea of the demilitarized zone
In the demilitarized zone, the armies of both countries speak the same language.
Unlike North Korea, the South Korean country uses various sections of its corresponding side of the DMZ, located 50 kilometers north of Seoul and 200 kilometers south of Pyongyang, to entertain tourists and make them aware of the history of both countries.
Previously, it was common that every time foreign visitor groups appeared at the border crossing, South Korean military personnel would turn on the loudspeakers.