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SEOUL: South Korea said on Monday it has started removing loudspeakers used to blare K-pop and news reports into the North, as a new administration in Seoul tries to ease tensions with its bellicose neighbor.

The nations, still technically at war, had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of President Lee Jae Myung.

It said in June that Pyongyang had stopped transmitting bizarre, unsettling noises along the border that had become a major nuisance for South Korean locals, a day after the South’s loudspeakers fell silent.

“Starting today, the military has begun removing the loudspeakers,” Lee Kyung-ho, spokesman of the South’s defense ministry, told reporters on Monday.

“It is a practical measure aimed at helping ease tensions with the North, provided that such actions do not compromise the military’s state of readiness.”

All loudspeakers set up along the border will be dismantled by the end of the week, he added, but did not disclose the exact number that would be removed.

President Lee, recently elected after his predecessor was impeached over an abortive martial law declaration, had ordered the military to stop the broadcasts in a bid to “restore trust.”

Relations between the two Koreas had been at one of their lowest points in years, with Seoul taking a hard line toward Pyongyang, which has drawn ever closer to Moscow in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The previous government started the broadcasts last year in response to a barrage of trash-filled balloons flown southward by Pyongyang.

But Lee vowed to improve relations with the North and reduce tensions on the peninsula.

Despite his diplomatic overtures, the North has rejected pursuing dialogue with its neighbor.

“If the ROK... expected that it could reverse all the results it had made with a few sentimental words, nothing is more serious miscalculation than it,” Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said last week using the South’s official name.

Lee has said he would seek talks with the North without preconditions, following a deep freeze under his predecessor.

The two countries technically remain at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump confirmed Sunday his special envoy Steve Witkoff will visit Russia in the coming week, ahead of a looming US sanctions deadline and escalating tensions with Moscow.
Speaking to reporters, Trump also said that two nuclear submarines he deployed following an online row with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev were now “in the region.”
Trump has not said whether he meant nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed submarines. He also did not elaborate on the exact deployment locations, which are kept secret by the US military.
The nuclear saber-rattling came against the backdrop of a deadline set by Trump at the end of next week for Russia to take steps toward ending the Ukraine war or face unspecified new sanctions.
The Republican leader said Witkoff would visit “I think next week, Wednesday or Thursday.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has already met Witkoff multiple times in Moscow, before Trump’s efforts to mend ties with the Kremlin came to a grinding halt.
When reporters asked what Witkoff’s message would be to Moscow, and if there was anything Russia could do to avoid the sanctions, Trump replied: “Yeah, get a deal where people stop getting killed.”


Trump has previously threatened that new measures could mean “secondary tariffs” targeting Russia’s remaining trade partners, such as China and India. This would further stifle Russia, but would risk significant international disruption.
Despite the pressure from Washington, Russia’s onslaught against its pro-Western neighbor continues to unfold.
Putin, who has consistently rejected calls for a ceasefire, said Friday that he wants peace but that his demands for ending his nearly three-and-a-half year invasion were “unchanged.”
“We need a lasting and stable peace on solid foundations that would satisfy both Russia and Ukraine, and would ensure the security of both countries,” Putin told reporters.
But he added that “the conditions (from the Russian side) certainly remain the same.”
Russia has frequently called on Ukraine to effectively cede control of four regions Moscow claims to have annexed, a demand Kyiv has called unacceptable.
Putin also seeks Ukraine drop its ambitions to join NATO.
Ukraine issued on Sunday a drone attack which sparked a fire at an oil depot in Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Kyiv has said it will intensify its air strikes against Russia in response to an increase in Russian attacks on its territory in recent weeks, which have killed dozens of civilians.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also said Sunday that the two sides were preparing a prisoner exchange that would see 1,200 Ukrainian troops return home, following talks with Russia in Istanbul in July.
Trump began his second term with his own rosy predictions that the war in Ukraine — raging since Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022 — would soon end.
In recent weeks, Trump has increasingly voiced frustration with Putin over Moscow’s unrelenting offensive.