South Korea resumes anti-North Korea loudspeaker broadcasts

South Korea, June 10: South Korea on Sunday resumed anti-North Korean propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts in border areas in retaliation for the North sending over 1,000 balloons filled with trash and manure over the last couple of weeks.

The move is certain to anger Pyongyang and could trigger retaliatory military steps as tensions between the war-divided rivals rise while negotiations over the North'HBJHGs nuclear ambitions remain stalemated.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that the military conducted a loudspeaker broadcast Sunday afternoon. It didn't specify the border area where it took place or what was played over the speakers.

"Whether our military conducts an additional loudspeaker broadcast is entirely dependent on North Korea's behaviour," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

Hours earlier, South Korean national security director Chang Ho-jin presided over an emergency meeting where officials decided to install and begin the broadcasts from loudspeakers. The South had withdrawn such equipment from border areas in 2018, during a brief period of engagement with the North under Seoul's previous liberal government.

Chang and other South Korean security officials berated Pyongyang for attempting to cause "anxiety and disruption" in South Korea with the balloons and stressed that North Korea would be "solely responsible" for any future escalation of tensions.

The North said its balloon campaign came after South Korean activists sent over balloons filled with anti-North Korean leaflets, as well as USB sticks filled with popular South Korean songs and dramas. Pyongyang is extremely sensitive to such material and fears it could demoralize front-line troops and residents and eventually weaken leader Kim Jong Un's grip on power, analysts say.

South Korea has in the past used loudspeakers to blare anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, K-pop songs and international news across the rivals' heavily armed border.

In 2015, when South Korea restarted loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in 11 years, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border, prompting South Korea to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No casualties were reported.

Last week, as tensions spiked over the trash-carrying balloons, South Korea also suspended a 2018 agreement to reduce hostile acts along the border, allowing it to resume propaganda campaigns and possibly restart live-fire military exercises in border areas. (AP)