S Korea begins removing anti-North Korea loudspeakers

Shortly after he took office in June, Lee's administration switched off propaganda broadcasts criticising the North Korean regime as it looks to revive stalled dialogue with its neighbour.

But North Korea recently rebuffed the overtures and said it had no interest in talking to South Korea.

South Korea's dismantling of the loudspeakers is just a "practical measure to help ease tensions between the South and the North," the ministry said in a statement.

Soldiers could be seen unplugging loudspeakers, mounted together like a wall, and taking them down, photographs provided by the defence ministry show.

The countries remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce and relations have deteriorated in the last few years.

Propaganda broadcast through loudspeakers across the border has been used by both sides as relations between South and North Korea have ebbed and flowed over the years.

In 2018, the then President Moon Jae-in dismantled the loudspeakers as his administration agreed to stop every hostile act that could be a source for military tensions.

But last year former conservative leader Yoon Suk Yeol restarted propaganda broadcasts and blasts of K-pop music in retaliation for North Korea sending balloons to the South filled with trash amid heightened tensions.

Since Seoul suspended its own loudspeaker broadcasts in June, North Korea appears to have stopped its broadcasts, which had disturbed South Korean border residents for months, officials in the South say.

Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, recently said, however, South Korea's decision to stop the broadcasts was "not the work worthy of appreciation".