By Shannon Tiezzi
Last summer, North Korea threatened military action unless the broadcasts were stopped.
In response to the North Korean nuclear test on Wednesday, South Korea will resume anti-North propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone that separates the two.
Cho Tae-yong, the deputy chief of national security at the Blue House (South Korea’s presidential office), said the broadcasts would begin at noon on Friday – Kim Jung-un’s birthday – according to Yonhap.
In August 2015, South Korea resumed the propaganda broadcasts for the first time since 2004. The decision came after an incident in which two South Korean soldiers were injured by landmines. South Korea’s loudspeakers blared not only anti-North Korean rhetoric, but weather reports, global news, and K-pop music. North Korea responded by launching artillery shells at the loudspeakers and announcing a “quasi-state of war.”
As David Eunpyoung Jee noted for The Diplomat last summer, the North’s furious reaction to the broadcasts indicated just how seriously Pyongyang takes the propaganda broadcasts – and how powerful a tool they could be for Seoul. The two sides negotiated their way back from the brink in late August, with South Korea agreeing to halt the broadcasts in exchange for an apology for the landmine incident and a promise not to undertake future provocations.
Read the full story at The Diplomat