Latest news with #JointChiefsOfStaff
Russia Today
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
North Korea stopped border loudspeaker broadcasts
North Korea appears to have stopped its border broadcasts as of Thursday morning, South Korea's military has said, a day after Seoul suspended its own loudspeaker campaign targeting its neighbor. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who took office this week, ordered the military to suspend loudspeaker broadcasts on Wednesday in a move aimed at easing tensions and reopening dialogue with Pyongyang. 'There was no region where North Korea's noise broadcasts to the South were heard today,' according to a South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Col. Lee Sung-Jun. He added that while the broadcasts had still been audible until around 11 pm the night before, 'so far, there is no region where the noise broadcast has been heard.' There hasn't been an official confirmation from North Korea. A local official told NK News that North Korean broadcasts changed from disruptive noise to calm songs on Wednesday night before stopping altogether by Thursday morning. 'We're not sure what genre the music was. Residents said it was calm and soothing.' Today, there's no noise at all,' the official told the media. Two cafes in Paju, a South Korean city near the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, told NK News they heard no broadcasts from the North that morning. Seoul had resumed its own loudspeaker campaign in July 2024 after North Korea launched trash-filled balloons into the South. The move came during a period of heightened tension, sparked in part by North Korean anger over leaflets sent by defectors in the South. Relations between the two countries deteriorated sharply under former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached in December. Lee Jae-myung, who won a snap election last week, pledged to end provocative measures such as loudspeaker broadcasts and leaflet campaigns, and to reengage diplomatically with the North. North Korea has long opposed joint military drills between South Korea and the United States, citing them as a threat. The two Koreas remain technically at war, as the 1953 armistice never led to a peace treaty.
South China Morning Post
12-06-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
South Korea suspends propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts along border to North Korea
Read more about this: South Korea's military has shut down loudspeakers broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda along the inter-Korean border, showcasing the new liberal government's first step to ease tensions between the war-divided rivals. South Korea resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts in June 2024, following a years-long pause in retaliation for North Korea flying trash-laden balloons toward the South in a psychological warfare campaign. Pyongyang meanwhile appears to have also suspended its own broadcasts near the border targeting South Korea, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.
South China Morning Post
12-06-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
End to inter-Korea ‘loudspeaker war'?
Silence has returned to the inter-Korean border for the first time in a year, as Pyongyang ceased loudspeaker broadcasts in a reciprocal action hours after Seoul powered down its propaganda volume on the front line. Advertisement Observers warn that while the halt may help build an atmosphere conducive to easing tensions, it does not yet signal a shift in the North's broader indifferent policy towards reconciliation with its neighbour or the United States. 'There have been no areas today where North Korea 's loudspeaker broadcasts towards the South were heard,' a South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff official said on Thursday. According to the official, North Korea's loudspeakers went quiet after 11pm on Wednesday. 'In the past, these broadcasts were often audible in the early morning, but none were heard this morning.' He warned, however, that the stoppage might only be temporary. 'We are closely monitoring the North for its next moves.' Advertisement Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, cautioned against reading too much into the development. 'North Korea is reacting proportionally to the South's prior halt to its borderline loudspeaker broadcasts. The North sees no need to continue the war of loudspeakers, which has a disproportionately greater psychological impact on its own soldiers and border residents than on South Koreans,' Hong told This Week in Asia.
Reuters
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
North Korea appears to have stopped loudspeakers blasting noise, Seoul says
SEOUL, June 12 (Reuters) - North Korea appears to have stopped loudspeakers near the border targeting South Korea, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Thursday. The JCS said that North Korean loudspeaker broadcasts were not heard on Thursday, and the South Korean military was monitoring Pyongyang's activities. Seoul suspended its own loudspeaker broadcasts near the border targeting North Korea on Wednesday, after having resumed propaganda and K-pop blasts last year during a time of growing tension with its neighbour. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who took office this month vowing to resume dialogue with the North, ordered the move to ease tension, a presidential spokesperson said. Those living near the heavily fortified border have opposed the loudspeaker broadcasts, which they blame for severe noise nuisance.
Arab News
01-06-2025
- Business
- Arab News
Pakistan raises alarm over risks to Asia-Pacific stability amid India tensions
ISLAMABAD: A top Pakistani general on Sunday raised alarmed over risks to Asia-Pacific stability in the absence of regional crisis management frameworks, amid prevailing tensions between Pakistan and India. Pakistan and India last month engaged in a worst standoff between them in decades that saw the neighbors attack each other with jets, missiles, drones and artillery, killing around 70 people on both sides before the United States brokered a ceasefire on May 10. The conflict, triggered by an attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir's Pahalgam town that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan, alarmed the world powers and raised fears that it could spiral into a full-blown war and bring the archfoes' nuclear arsenals into play. Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue security meeting in Singapore, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, Pakistan's Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee chairman, said the recent India-Pakistan conflict underscored how crisis management frameworks remained 'hostage to countries' belligerence.' 'The recent standoff amply underlines significance of maintaining open channels of communications to avert crises as and when they erupt. Post-Pahalgam [attack], the threshold of an escalatory war has come dangerously low, implying greater risk on both sides, just not in the disputed territory, but all of India and all of Pakistan,' he said. 'In future, given the Indian policies and polities' extremist mindset, absence of a crisis management mechanism may not give enough time to the global powers to intervene and effect cessation of hostilities.' Bitter rivals India and Pakistan have fought three wars, including two over the disputed region of Kashmir, since gaining independence from British rule in 1947. Before the conflict, both nations unleashed a raft of punitive measures against each other, with India suspending the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty that ensures water for 80 percent of Pakistani farms and Pakistan closing its airspace to Indian airlines. India has said the treaty would remain in abeyance. Gen Mirza said New Delhi's move to suspend the treaty is in 'total defiance of the international laws, since it is an existential threat for the people of Pakistan.' 'If there is any effort to stop, divert or delay Pakistan's share of water, as clearly spelt out by our National Security Committee, it could be considered as an act of war,' he added.
