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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister has rebutted South Korea’s claims that Pyongyang removed some of its propaganda-blasting loudspeakers along the border.<\/p>\n
North Korea has “never removed” the speakers and “are not willing to remove them”, Kim Yo Jong said in a statement published by state media KCNA on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“We have clarified on several occasions that we have no will to improve relations with [South Korea],” she said, adding that this stance “will be fixed in our constitution in the future”.<\/p>\n
South Korea’s military said earlier this week that North Korea had removed some of its loudspeakers along the border – days after South Korea dismantled some of its own.<\/p>\n
Kim, the deputy director of North Korea’s propaganda department, said Seoul’s claim was an “unfounded unilateral supposition and a red herring”.<\/p>\n
Besides propaganda messages, South Korea’s broadcasts often blasted K-pop songs across the border. while North Korea played unsettling noises such as howling animals.<\/p>\n
South Korean residents living near the border had complained that their lives were being disrupted been by the noise from both sides, sometimes in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n
Pyongyang considers Seoul’s propaganda broadcasts an act of war and has threatened to blow up the speakers in the past.<\/p>\n
South Korea’s speaker broadcasts resumed in June 2024 after a six year pause under impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol who took a more hardline stance against the North.<\/p>\n
They were restarted after Pyongyang began sending rubbish-filled balloons to the South in response to increased tensions.<\/p>\n
The relationship appeared to have thawed under new President Lee Jae Myung, who campaigned on improving inter-Korean ties.<\/p>\n
South Korea halted its broadcasts along the demilitarised zone shortly after Lee took office in June, in what the country’s military described as a bid to “restore trust” and “achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula”.<\/p>\n
Still, ties between the two neighbours remain uneasy. Earlier this week, North Korea warned of “resolute counteraction” to provocations ahead of joint military drills between South Korea and the US.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n