South Korea on Wednesday switched off loudspeakers that had been broadcasting K-pop songs, news and other propaganda into North Korea for the past year — one of the first concrete steps taken by the newly elected leader, Lee Jae-myung, to improve inter-Korean ties.
Mr. Lee ordered his military to turn off the high-powered loudspeakers on Wednesday afternoon to “help restore trust in South-North Korean relations and build peace on the Korean Peninsula,” said Kang Yu-jung, Mr. Lee’s spokeswoman.
Inter-Korean relations plunged to their lowest point in many years under Mr. Lee’s impeached predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol, as the countries escalated a tit-for-tat exchange across the border. Mr. Yoon supported the idea of spreading outside information into the isolated North. He allowed activists in the South — most of them defectors from the North — to launch large balloons loaded with propaganda leaflets that contained news and bitter criticism of the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, calling him “a bloodthirsty dictator” or “pig.”
North Korea bristled at the balloons and retaliated last year by sending balloons loaded with cigarette butts and other trash into the South.
Mr. Yoon’s government responded by turning on its propaganda loudspeakers a year ago, bombarding North Korean soldiers and villagers along the border with K-pop music and news. The North amped up its own loudspeakers, broadcasting eerie noises that South Korean villagers on the border found so irritable that they installed double-pane windows and other sound insulation at home.
By switching off its loudspeakers first on Wednesday, Mr. Lee’s government essentially proposed a cease-fire in the loudspeaker war. South Korean military officials said on Wednesday that they were monitoring the border to see if the North would reciprocate by turning off its loudspeakers.
“We hope that North Korea will also stop its noise attack, so we can all go back to a normal life,” said Park Yong-cheol, the mayor of Gwanghwa, a South Korean county on the border with the North.
During his campaign for the election on Tuesday last week, Mr. Lee sharply criticized Mr. Yoon’s policy on North Korea, accusing him of unnecessarily raising tensions. He vowed to improve inter-Korean ties by seeking to restore channels of dialogue between the two Koreas. He also said that the two Koreas should stop actions that raised tensions.
Earlier this week, Mr. Lee’s government also began urging activist groups in South Korea not to release propaganda balloons across the border. It said that the balloons did more to raise political tensions with the North than to improve its people’s access to outside news.
But activists insisted that sending balloons to the North was part of their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression. They also accused Mr. Lee’s government of undermining the North Koreans’ right to information and of appeasing Mr. Kim’s regime in the name of reducing tensions.
South Korean officials indicated that they would consider invoking domestic laws on aviation and public safety to crack down on the attempts to send balloons. South Korean residents along the border have complained that the activists’ balloons threatened their safety by raising military tensions and prompting North Korea to send trash balloons.
North Korea did not immediately react to South Korea’s latest overtures.
But it has stopped sending trash balloons since November as South Korea lurched through monthslong domestic political turmoil triggered by Mr. Yoon’s short-lived imposition of martial law in December, and his subsequent impeachment and removal from office.
Under Mr. Kim, North Korea has grown increasingly hostile toward the South. It has shut off all dialogue with Seoul and Washington, and doubled down on testing nuclear-capable missiles. Mr. Kim has vowed to treat South Korea not as a partner for reunification, but as an enemy that the North must annex — if necessary, with its nuclear weapons — should war break out. The North also demolished in October all railway and road links between the two Koreas with dynamite.
In the South, Mr. Yoon was also confrontational toward the North. His government expanded joint military drills with the United States and Japan, which involved aircraft carriers, strategic bombers and stealth jets, to deter Mr. Kim. Mr. Yoon called for spreading the idea of freedom to the North to penetrate the information blackout Mr. Kim long has relied on to maintain his totalitarian rule.
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.
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