SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s propaganda loudspeakers aimed at South Korea will be ready to restart along the entire border within days, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement carried Thursday by the state news agency KCNA, The Guardian and Reuters reported.
If the broadcasts resume, it would be the first loudspeaker exchange across the border in 16 months. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung halted the South’s broadcasts days into his presidency in June 2025 to ease tensions, and the military dismantled its speakers that August.
A South Korean defense ministry spokesperson said that if the North went ahead, “naturally there would have to be a proportional measure,” but that no decision had been made, according to The Guardian. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said routine maintenance of the North’s loudspeakers had been observed beforehand.
Kim Yo Jong inspected border fortifications on Wednesday and said the frontier had been “turned into a fortress more thoroughly,” adding that her brother had told her it “should be a permanent line never to be crossed.”
Tensions have risen since September, when a landmine blast south of the military demarcation line injured three South Korean soldiers. Seoul and the U.N. Command concluded it was a North Korean mine; Pyongyang called the incident a “self-staged farce.”
Sources: The Guardian, Reuters
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