South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Saturday that it has observed North Korean troops dismantling some of the propaganda loudspeakers positioned along the inter-Korean border. The activity was detected from the morning of 9 August in several front-line sections, according to a military notice released in Seoul. The JCS added that it remains unclear whether the removal is occurring across the entire frontier and pledged continuous monitoring. No estimates were given for how many devices are being taken down. Pyongyang’s move comes only days after Seoul completed removal of its own border loudspeakers and weeks after the new liberal administration of President Lee Jae Myung halted anti-North broadcasts in an effort to reopen dialogue with the North. It is the first publicly confirmed reciprocal gesture between the two sides since Lee took office in June. Both Koreas have used loudspeakers intermittently for psychological operations since the 1950-53 war, resuming full-volume broadcasts in mid-2024 when the previous conservative government in Seoul reacted to waves of rubbish-filled balloons launched by the North. The peninsula remains technically at war because the conflict ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.