South Korea stops decades-old propaganda broadcast into North Korea to ease tensions

SEOUL – South Korea has suspended decades-old radio broadcasts into North Korea in its latest move to ease tensions, marking a symbolic win for Pyongyang by cutting off a rare source of uncensored information for its citizens.

South Korea’s presidential office said on July 23 the radio broadcasts have been suspended “for some time now”, saying such a move is better than witnessing inter-Korean ties deteriorating.

That confirmed a recent report by the 38 North programme at the Stimson Centre that said that four radio stations believed to have been operated by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service went silent in early July.

“In most of the world, cross-border broadcasting is a relic of a bygone era,” Mr Martyn Williams, a senior fellow for the Stimson Centre, said in the report.

“But North Korea is not like most of the world. It is one of the few places where people don’t have access to the internet and are banned from accessing foreign media.” 

The move is especially notable because the programmes, some of which date back to the 1970s, “have never paused broadcasting since their start, no matter the political relationship between the two Koreas being warm or frosty”, Mr Williams said. 

The move aligns with South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung’s broader effort to improve relations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, signalling a departure from the hardline policies of his conservative predecessor.

In June, Mr Lee ordered

a halt to loudspeaker broadcasts

near the border that criticise the Kim regime. 

While the impact of the suspended broadcasts is hard to measure, North Korea’s consistent attempts to jam the signals suggest they were effective in reaching listeners, Mr Williams said.