North Korea to Restart Border Loudspeakers as Kim Yo Jong Warns South of 'Most Terrible Situation'
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has announced that giant loudspeakers will again be switched on along the border with South Korea. She also warned that if Seoul continues to interfere in North Korea's internal affairs, South Korea will face 'the most terrible and painful situation'.
In a statement on Thursday (October 22), Kim Yo Jong said anti-South Korean loudspeakers would be activated along the entire border by the end of October. The night before, she had inspected border fortifications and defences together with senior military officers.
Kim Yo Jong alleged that North Korea's strategic military units had taken up new positions at the border, while South Korean troops had broadcast provocative messages in the border area and fired blank shots at several locations.
She warned that if South Korean warning shots harmed North Korean territory or any of its soldiers, the South Korean forces would be 'annihilated without hesitation and mercilessly'.
South Korea, however, has described its steps as 'lawful and defensive'. The country's defence and unification ministries called on North Korea to return to the negotiating table.
In a statement, South Korea's military said Kim Yo Jong's angry reaction showed that Seoul's measures, taken with the support of the UN Command to tighten control in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), were working. The defence ministry said that if North Korea carried out its threat, South Korea would respond 'proportionately and appropriately'.
Kim Yo Jong's warning is being seen as a major blow to South Korean President Lee Jae-myung's diplomatic efforts to reduce hostility between the two countries. Tensions along the border have risen since he took office in June last year, according to the report.
The DMZ has separated the two countries since the 1950–53 Korean War ended in an armistice. Historically, both sides have used powerful loudspeakers for propaganda along the border; South Korea's speakers broadcast popular K-pop songs and national news, which angered the North.
After taking office, Lee Jae-myung halted the border loudspeaker broadcasts last year as a confidence-building measure and removed the speakers. North Korea, in response, also kept its broadcasts off. But Pyongyang has rejected talks and, since 2024, has been building permanent walls, laying mines and erecting barbed-wire fences along the border.
Recently, Seoul blamed North Korea for a border mine explosion that seriously injured two South Korean soldiers, but Pyongyang denied it and dismissed the incident as a 'fabricated story'.
Professor Lim Eul-chul of Kyungnam University in Seoul believes Kim Yo Jong's threat does not mean the loudspeakers will be switched on immediately. But he said the threat has created a major political and military dilemma for President Lee Jae-myung's administration.
All eyes will now be on whether the speakers really are switched on by the end of October. The exchange of statements makes clear that tensions around the DMZ are rising again, and the next step will depend on how Pyongyang answers Seoul's call to return to dialogue.
