South Korea yesterday halted anti-North Korea propaganda broadcasts across their tense border as officials from the two Koreas met again to work out details of their leaders’ talks on Friday, expected to focus on the North’s nuclear program.
Seoul had been blasting propaganda messages and K-pop songs from border loudspeakers since the North’s fourth nuclear test in early 2016. The North matched the South’s action with its own border broadcasts.
The government turned off its broadcasts to ease military tensions and establish an environment for peaceful talks, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense said in a statement.
It said Seoul hoped the decision would lead to both sides stopping slander and propaganda activities.
Yonhap news agency, citing an unidentified government source, said that North Korea was believed to have turned off many of its propaganda broadcasts later in the day.
South Korean defense officials said they could not immediately confirm the status of the North’s broadcasts.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are to meet on Friday at the border village of Panmunjom in their nations’ third-ever summit talks.
The two Koreas yesterday held a third round of working-level talks at Panmunjom and agreed to conduct a joint rehearsal tomorrow of the summit, Moon’s office said in a statement.
It said the two sides agreed the summit would include a welcoming ceremony and a banquet.
In related news, thousands of South Korean riot police were sent in yesterday to disperse about 200 protesters trying to block construction trucks from moving into a base housing a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in Seongju.
“A peace treaty is being discussed... There is no more North Korea [nuclear threat] as an excuse [for deployment of THAAD]. We can neither understand nor accept construction plans to operate the THAAD,” the residents’ committee said in a statement.
Residents have been blocking the only road to the site since the middle of last year, forcing the US military to use helicopters to shuttle in fuel and other supplies.
Dozens of protesters were seen tussling with police yesterday, yelling and demanding ambulances be called, live footage on Facebook showed.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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