Is North Korea dismantling its propaganda loudspeakers? Pyongyang denies this

North Korea has rejected statements from South Korea that Pyongyang has begun dismantling propaganda loudspeakers along the heavily armed border.

"We have never removed the loudspeakers installed on the border area and we are not prepared to remove them," said Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un, via the state news agency KCNA.

The 37-year-old also categorically rejected any rapprochement with South Korea. "We have made it clear several times that we have no intention of improving relations with the Republic of Korea". This stance is final and will also be enshrined in the North Korean constitution in future, Kim continued.

South Korea declared the "main enemy"

Since taking office at the beginning of June, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has been trying to improve the tense relations with the neighboring North. As part of its policy of rapprochement, the South Korean military has stopped broadcasting propaganda along the inter-Korean border and dismantled its loudspeaker systems. At the beginning of the month, the South Korean military then reported that North Korea had also begun dismantling its loudspeaker systems.

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated significantly again in recent years. At the end of 2023, the North declared South Korea its "main enemy" and subsequently abandoned its decades-old political goal of reunification.

Since the Korean War (1950-1953), the Korean peninsula has been divided into a communist North and a democratic South. Although the war ended with an armistice, neither state has signed a peace treaty to this day.