South Korea has started dismantling its loudspeakers used to broadcast anti-Pyongyang messages along the border, in what President Lee Jae-myung’s administration is calling a key step toward reducing military tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

“Starting today, the military has begun removing the loudspeakers,” Defence Ministry spokesman Lee Kyung-ho told reporters Monday, adding that the measure reflects the government’s commitment to restoring inter-Korean dialogue after years of heightened hostility.

President Lee, who took office just weeks ago following the impeachment of his predecessor, quickly ordered the broadcasts to be halted as part of a broader strategy to re-engage with North Korea. The ministry said all loudspeakers along the fortified frontier will be dismantled by week’s end but did not disclose the total number being removed.

“This is a practical step to ease tensions, provided it does not undermine our military readiness,” the ministry said in a statement.

The propaganda broadcasts were restarted last year in retaliation for North Korea’s release of trash-filled balloons over the border — a tactic that had inflamed tensions between the two sides.

North Korea has so far reacted coldly to Seoul’s softer tone. Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of leader Kim Jong Un, issued a blistering statement last week rejecting the prospect of talks.

“If the ROK thinks it can undo years of actions with a few sentimental words, nothing could be a greater miscalculation,” she said, using South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.

Relations remain stalled, further strained by Pyongyang’s growing military cooperation with Russia since the start of Moscow’s war in Ukraine. The two Koreas are still technically at war, as the 1950–53 Korean conflict ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

President Lee has pledged to pursue dialogue with the North without preconditions — a sharp departure from his predecessor’s hardline policies — but it remains unclear whether the dismantling of the loudspeakers will be viewed in Pyongyang as a genuine olive branch or an empty gesture.