Overview

• President Lee Jae Myung ordered the military to shut off loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts toward North Korea on June 11, fulfilling his campaign promise to end noisy border confrontations.
• North Korea reciprocated by silencing its own broadcasts of animal noises and gong sounds, marking a rare mutual de-escalation along the Demilitarized Zone.
• Under former president Yoon Suk Yeol, the propaganda war had escalated to include loudspeaker music blasts and balloon drops of leaflets, USB sticks and even waste across the border.
• South Korea’s Unification Ministry urged a halt to activist-mounted balloon drops of flyers and USB drives to avoid reigniting tensions.
• Despite the broadcast truce, the peninsula remains technically at war, with trust still fragile amid North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and US-South Korean military drills.