SEOUL, June 12 (UPI) — North Korea appears to have stopped broadcasting loud noises towards the South, Seoul’s military said Thursday, one day after South Korea halted its anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker campaign near the demilitarized zone.
“Today, there were no areas where North Korea’s noise broadcasts to the South were heard,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters.
The North had been broadcasting bizarre noises such as metallic screeching and animal sounds since last year, as Cold War-style provocations escalated along the inter-Korean border.
Newly elected South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has vowed to lower tensions with Pyongyang, and on Wednesday ordered the suspension of the South’s propaganda broadcasts of K-pop, news and information across the border.
Lee’s office said that the move was made “to ease the military standoff between the South and the North and to open the way to restoring mutual trust.”
It was also meant to “alleviate the suffering of residents in border areas who have suffered due to North Korea’s noise broadcasts,” spokeswoman Kang Yoo-jung said in a briefing Wednesday.
Seoul resumed the propaganda broadcasts roughly one year ago in response to a series of provocations by North Korea that included floating thousands of trash-filled balloons across the border.
Lee, who won a snap election on June 3 to replace impeached former President Yoon Suk Yeol, vowed during his campaign to suspend the loudspeaker broadcasts as well as prevent defector groups from floating balloons with anti-Pyongyang leaflets and USB drives over the border.
On Thursday, Lee pledged to swiftly restore communication channels with the North.
“We will stop wasteful hostilities and resume dialogue and cooperation,” he said in a speech marking the 25th anniversary of the first inter-Korean summit between former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
“We will restore the crisis management system that prevents accidental clashes and avoids heightening tensions,” Lee said in the speech, which was read on his behalf by a senior official at a commemorative event in Seoul. “To this end, we will strive to quickly restore the inter-Korean dialogue channels.”
The two Koreas reestablished a military hotline in 2018 during a period of detente. However, the North stopped answering the daily calls in 2023 as relations soured amid expanded U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises and a hardline stance by former President Yoon.