The Koreas | Security | East Asia

As North Korea’s Loudspeaker Broadcasts Loom, South Korea Has No Good Options

Kim Yo Jong said broadcasts near the border will resume this month. For Seoul, every possible response carries a cost.

In this image provided by North Korean state media, Kim Yo Jong visits the border area to inspect fortifications, Oct. 21, 2026.

On October 21, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, announced that loudspeakers for psychological warfare against South Korea would begin operations along the whole border before the end of the month, according to the North’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). She made the announcement after inspecting fortification work at several border sites early that morning. The work followed a declaration by Kim Jong Un in late 2023 that the two Koreas were hostile states.

Pyongyang’s announcement about resuming the loudspeaker broadcasts came weeks after a land mine explosion in the southern border of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on September 21. Two blasts injured three South Korean soldiers in the DMZ, which divides the peninsula. On October 5, South Korean and United Nations Command investigators concluded that North Korea had planted the mines in violation of the Korean War armistice. However, Pyongyang has rejected the finding. In fact, Kim Yo Jong described the blasts in her statement of October 22 as a suspicious accident that South Korea created for itself.

A mine blast has led to loudspeaker use before. In 2015, land mines injured two South Korean soldiers, and Seoul turned its speakers back on for the first time in 11 years. The two Koreas agreed in 2018 to stop the broadcasts and took down their speakers. Under then-South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, Seoul resumed broadcasts in June 2024 in retaliation for trash balloons flown from North Korea. 

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung chose the opposite course after taking office in 2025. He halted the broadcasts and began dismantling the speakers that August. North Korea stopped its own broadcasts around the same time. The blasts of September have put that policy under strain, as Pyongyang has pledged to resume broadcasts.

So far, Lee has answered the landmine explosion – and North Korea’s denial – with diplomacy. On October 22, his government sent a letter to the president of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). The letter condemned North Korea for violating the armistice and called on Pyongyang to apologize. On October 25, North Korea replied with a letter of its own to the United Nations Security Council. The letter accused South Korean troops of firing warning shots at North Korean personnel and invoked the right of self-defense under the United Nations Charter. 

In Seoul, the Defense Ministry ties its warning shots and broadcasts to a dispute over where the border line, formally known as the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), runs within the DMZ. On October 23, South Korea’s Defense Ministry proposed military talks to confirm where the MDL lies. The ministry had extended a similar offer in November 2025. Both times, North Korea ignored the proposal.

Instead, Pyongyang has decided to up the ante. Kim Yo Jong said North Korea’s resumption of loudspeaker broadcasts was retaliation for the South’s defense of the border.

While North Korea complains of “provocations” by the South, Lee is already under fire at home for not responding strongly enough. In an Armed Forces Day address on October 1, Lee expressed sorrow for the soldiers wounded in the landmine blast but did not blame North Korea. The leadership of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) boycotted the ceremony in protest. On October 27, South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young drew fire at a parliamentary audit for calling landmines defensive weapons.

Since then, the PPP has urged the government to restart loudspeaker broadcasts toward the North. Restarting the broadcasts would meet public demand for strong action against........

© The Diplomat