North Korea is reinstalling propaganda loudspeakers in regions along the inter-Korean border after removing them under a 2018 summit agreement with South Korea, military officials said Monday. After the summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on April 27, 2018, the two Koreas agreed to halt all hostile acts against each other and eliminate their means, including broadcasting through loudspeakers and distribution of leaflets. According to the authorities, North

Seoul’s top security adviser sends statement to White House, calls for action

North Korea's surprise demolition of an inter-Korean liaison office last week is not in breach of the latest military tension reduction agreement between the two Koreas, Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo here said Monday.      Speaking to a plenary session of the parliamentary standing committee on national defense, the minister said the demolition "has nothing to do with the Sept. 19 military agreement." "The military pact deals with various measures t

Kim Byung-joo, former deputy commander of the ROK-US Combined Forces Command, said South Korea should manage military tensions to prevent them from getting out of control, while remaining on guard against aggression from North Korea. Despite the North’s escalating threats to undo all the progress both sides have made toward peace and reconciliation, Seoul should continue to honor its agreements with Pyongyang, he added. “Returning to confrontation would further jeopardize the saf

North Korea is reinstalling propaganda loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border and preparing to drop 12 million anti-Seoul leaflets here, amid escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula since the North demolished a joint liaison office. 　 South Korea’s military said the North appears to be setting up loudspeakers “in multiple places” inside the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas. Both Koreas dismantled their propaganda loudspeakers in May 2018 after agreeing to st

South Korea is closely monitoring North Korean military movements regarding Pyongyang's plan to send propaganda leaflets across the border while leaving all response options open, including military action, officials said Monday. The communist country is preparing to release some 3,000 balloons carrying around 12 million propaganda leaflets to the South, according to the North's Korean Central News Agency, in a tit-for-tat for Seoul's failure to stop defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang leaf

North Korea is preparing to hold a large-scale military parade to mark October's 75th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers' Party, the defense ministry said Monday, amid speculation that the communist nation could use the event to showcase new strategic weapons. In a report to the parliament's defense committee, the ministry said new buildings were spotted under construction at the Mirim airfield in Pyongyang, a possible sign the North could showcase an intercontinental ballistic

WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump did not want South Korean President Moon Jae-in to join him during his third meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at Panmunjom in June 2019, but at Moon's insistence, he eventually agreed, according to Trump's former National Security Adviser John Bolton. In his upcoming memoir, "The Room Where It Happened," set to be published Tuesday, Bolton wrote that Moon came to Washington on April 11, 2019, to discuss the aftermath of the failed H

North Korea is preparing to send around 12 million propaganda leaflets to South Korea via some 3,000 balloons, state media reported Monday, saying, "The time for retaliatory punishment" is fast approaching. North Korea has threatened to send propaganda leaflets into the South in retaliation against South Korea's failure to stop North Korean defectors and other activists from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets into the communist state despite their 2018 summit agreement banning such act

  Even in the 21st century with all its technical wizardry and social media, old-fashioned propaganda leaflets seem to matter a great deal on Korean Peninsula, the world’s last remaining Cold War frontier.  The act of flying huge gas-filled balloons carrying leaflets and other materials denouncing the rival regime has lately become the source of sudden ratcheting up of tensions between the two Koreas. 　 Enraged by defectors here sending anti-North Korea leaflets across the bor

The top nuclear envoys of South Korea and the United States share the gravity of the situation on the Korean Peninsula, amid rising tensions caused by North Korea's demolition of a joint liaison office and bellicose rhetoric, a diplomatic source said Sunday. Seoul's chief nuclear negotiator Lee Do-hoon held talks with his US counterpart, Stephen Biegun, on Thursday during his low-key trip to Washington that followed the North's blowing up of the office in its border city of Kaesong on Tuesday

The unification ministry plans to upgrade its computer system to strengthen security against possible cyberattacks from North Korea and other hackers, officials said Sunday. The move comes a year after hackers posing as the ministry sent emails with malicious codes to reporters covering the ministry and other related people. Hacking experts said at the time that North Korea was believed to be behind the attacks. Earlier this month, the ministry announced a bid to pursue the upgrade, saying, &

North Korea keeps sending small groups of troops to border sentry posts for bush clearance and road maintenance, a government source said Sunday, amid concerns it could deliver on its threat of military action against South Korea. The North has sent groups of up to five soldiers with shovels and sickles to small stakeout boxes in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. But Seoul does not see the move as a step to make good on Pyongyang's threat of military action, the source said. I

North Korea said Sunday that it has no intention to cancel its plan to send anti-South Korea leaflets across the border, calling an inter-Korean agreement that bans such activity "a dead document." On Saturday, the North's state media said Pyongyang was printing anti-Seoul propaganda materials in large numbers and preparing to send them across the border. South Korea's unification ministry expressed regret and urged Pyongyang to withdraw the plan immediately, calling it a violation o

   South Korea urged North Korea on Saturday to "immediately" withdraw its plan to send anti-Seoul leaflets across the border into the South, voicing regret over its decision to do so.  The unification ministry handling inter-Korean affairs made the request after the North's state media said earlier in the day it was printing anti-Seoul propaganda materials in large numbers and preparing to send them across the border to the South.  The North's Korean Central New