Overview

• South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that North Korean troops began taking down some of their propaganda loudspeakers along the Demilitarized Zone on Saturday morning.
• Seoul completed dismantling roughly 20 fixed anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker installations this week after suspending broadcasts on June 11 as part of President Lee Jae Myung’s outreach to the North.
• The administration has urged civic groups to halt anti-North Korea leaflet drops and postponed parts of the U.S.-South Korea Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises as tension-reduction measures.
• South Korea’s Unification Ministry is awaiting Pyongyang’s response to a request to repatriate the body of a North Korean national found in June via Panmunjom.
• Military officials continue to monitor a presumed defection after a North Korean individual crossed the neutral waters of the Han River estuary into the South last week.