Kim Yo Jong: North Korea Weighs Loudspeaker Broadcasts at Seoul — SkimNews
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- Kim Yo Jong said on Oct 19 via KCNA that North Korea's military leadership is "examining the issues of deploying more tactical strike means along the southern border" and "resuming loudspeaker broadcasting against the ROK" as pre-emptive and suppressive measures
- Kim Yo Jong accused South Korea's military of threatening North Korean personnel by firing warning shots with automatic rifles and large-calibre machine guns, calling the southern border situation "very unstable,"
- South Korea's military reported on Oct 5 that North Korea deployed as many as 7,000 workers in 2026 to install mines and fences along the DMZ, with approximately 50 border-crossing incidents recorded
- North Korean mines caused a September border blast that seriously wounded two North Korean soldiers, prompting Seoul to call on Pyongyang to suspend its fortification work
- Kim Yo Jong disclosed that Seoul carried out 2,870 rounds of loudspeaker warnings and fired 201 warning shots from Aug. 1 to Oct. 17 — figures the South Korean military has not publicly confirmed
- Lim Eul-chul of Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies said Pyongyang appears worried that South Korean warning activities could escalate tensions or trigger a military conflict
Why it matters: Any resumption of North Korean loudspeaker broadcasts would reverse a de-escalation step Seoul halted under a 2018 inter-Korean pact, while the North's parallel threat to add tactical strike means raises the stakes on a border where mines have already wounded soldiers and workers are actively fortifying it.
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