Seoul to resume loudspeaker propaganda against North

Seoul: South Korea announced Sunday that it would resume loudspeaker propaganda campaigns against the North after Pyongyang sent a fresh barrage of tr...

Seoul: South Korea announced Sunday that it would resume loudspeaker propaganda campaigns against the North after Pyongyang sent a fresh barrage of trash-filled balloons across the border.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years and in recent weeks the two have engaged in a tit-for-tat campaign of balloon launches, with analysts warning the escalatory cycle could end in actual military skirmishes.

Seoul this month suspended a 2018 military deal aimed at reducing tensions on the peninsula after Pyongyang sent hundreds of balloons carrying bags of garbage, including cigarette butts and plastic waste, paving the way for the resumption of the loudspeaker campaigns.

Seoul has slammed the balloon launches as "low class" but, unlike Kim Jong Un's repeated ballistic missile tests, they do not violate rafts of UN sanctions on the nuclear-armed North.

"We will install loudspeakers against North Korea today and carry out the broadcast," the president's office said in a statement, adding that "the responsibility for the escalation of tension between the two Koreas will be entirely up to the North".