North Korea says it will restart border propaganda broadcasts as tensions rise with the South
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- North Korea plans to restart anti-Seoul loudspeaker broadcasts along the border this month, Kim Yo Jong said, escalating psychological warfare amid rising tensions with South Korea.
- The pledge follows land mine blasts that injured three South Korean soldiers; Seoul says North Korea planted the mines, while Pyongyang denies responsibility and threatens retaliation.
- The dispute unfolds as North Korea fortifies the already heavily armed frontier and both sides trade accusations, with diplomacy stalled and Seoul’s military vowing a firm response.
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister says her government will resume anti-Seoul propaganda broadcasts across the heavily armed border with South Korea this month, reviving a psychological warfare campaign as tensions rise after land mine blasts injured three South Korean front-line soldiers.
Kim Yo Jong, widely viewed as the second most powerful official in Pyongyang, made the statement Oct. 21 after visiting front-line areas where soldiers are reinforcing the border. She renewed a threat to retaliate against any South Korean provocation targeting the fortification work.
North Korea has been adding mines, barbed wire fences, anti-tank barriers and other fortifications to what’s already one of the world’s most heavily armed borders as Kim Jong Un pushes a hard line toward Seoul.
Touring the area with Marshal Pak Jong Chon, one of her brother’s top military officials, she called the fortification work a “sacred and great undertaking” supporting the leader’s policy of permanently severing ties with South Korea, which he has declared his most hostile adversary amid a broader diplomatic stalemate with Washington.
“Our tactical hunting teams are taking new positions, and within October, the loudspeakers for psychological warfare against the ROK will be in operation along the whole border,” Kim Yo Jong said, using the initials of South Korea’s formal name, the Republic of Korea.
She warned that if South Korean warning shots — which Seoul says are meant to force North Korean soldiers doing fortification work back across the border — cause “actual harm to our territorial security and our service persons’ safety,” North Korean border guards “will show no mercy for the armed gangsters bereft of reason.”
Following an inspection with the U.S.-led United Nations Command, Seoul formally blamed North Korean-planted mines for the Sept. 21 border blasts and urged the North to apologize and clear its remaining mines. North Korea denied responsibility for the explosions and warned of strong retaliation if provoked.
“Our military leadership underlined the need to make those rogues aware that our new firepower units have taken their firing positions,” Kim told soldiers during her visit Wednesday, reminding them of her brother’s order to make the border with the “enemy ... eternally impregnable.”
South Korea’s military has said North Korean soldiers crossed the border’s military demarcation line 50 times this year during fortification work, and that it responded with warning shots and broadcasts. Kim has said South Korean’s claims of border crossings are a “false pretext,” and that its provocations have increased “beyond the red line” since the mine blasts.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Jin Yong-Sung, called Kim’s threats “intolerable” and ordered the military to “sternly respond” to potential provocations by the North.
Loudspeaker broadcasts are among the Cold War-era psychological warfare tactics the two Koreas have occasionally used against each other during times of tensions.
South Korea’s liberal government, led by President Lee Jae Myung, halted its broadcasts after taking office last year to improve ties with the North, which later stopped its own.
Kim Jong Un in recent years has cut off all diplomacy and cooperation with South Korea and declared it a permanent enemy as a years-long stalemate in nuclear negotiations with Washington drags on.
Tong-Hyung writes for the Associated Press.
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