Pyongyang Readies Loudspeakers Along Korean Border

North Korea said Thursday it would put anti-South Korea loudspeakers on standby along the entire border within days, renewing a propaganda standoff as the two governments clash over military activity in the Demilitarized Zone. Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, also said unspecified new countermeasures had been alerted. She warned Seoul of “the most horrible and distressing situation” if it continued what Pyongyang calls interference in North Korea’s internal affairs.

The border dispute

In a statement carried by state media KCNA, Kim said she was responding to a special adviser to South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on defence policy. The adviser accused North Korea of planting mines that wounded South Korean soldiers and urged it not to escalate tensions with loudspeaker broadcasts.

“Our new counter means will get into the alert for duty at all the southern border line and the loudspeakers against the ROK will be on standby in a matter of days,” Kim said. She added that North Korea would continue fortifying its southern border. The announcement set the speakers on standby; it didn’t say they had resumed broadcasting.

Kim issued another statement Wednesday evening, October 21, after visiting fortification sites with senior military officials. She said North Korea would activate anti-South Korea loudspeakers across the border by the end of October. She also said North Korean tactical units had taken up new positions and accused South Korean troops of conducting warning broadcasts and firing warning shots at multiple locations near the border.

South Korea called its warning shots “legitimate and defensive measures.” Kim warned that North Korean troops would “mercilessly eliminate” South Korean forces if warning fire caused harm to North Korean territory or personnel. Border control now sits at the heart of the escalation, alongside sharply competing claims about military conduct.

Claims, broadcasts and the frontier

South Korea says North Korean mines planted during fortification activity in the Demilitarized Zone caused a blast last month that seriously wounded two soldiers. North Korea denies responsibility and calls the incident a South Korean fabrication. The governments offer sharply different accounts of the blast and activity around the frontier.

The developments threaten to reverse South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s efforts to ease inter-Korean hostility and raise tensions along the heavily fortified frontier to their highest level since he took office. Lee has pursued diplomatic engagement and tension reduction despite Pyongyang’s refusal to resume dialogue and its designation of South Korea as a hostile state.

Lee’s administration halted South Korean loudspeaker broadcasts and dismantled fixed border loudspeakers last year as confidence-building measures. North Korea later suspended its own broadcasts toward the South. Both Koreas have long used loudspeakers to broadcast propaganda across the border; South Korean broadcasts have included K-pop music and news that have angered Pyongyang for years and prompted tit-for-tat responses.

The Demilitarized Zone dates to the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War, when the two sides reached an armistice. Since 2024, North Korea has reinforced its side with mines, barriers and fencing as it seeks to establish what it calls a permanent border with South Korea.

Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Seoul’s Kyungnam University, said Kim’s warnings didn’t necessarily mean the loudspeakers would be activated immediately. He said they presented Lee’s administration with an “enormous dilemma” as it weighs peaceful engagement against containing North Korean military activity along the border.