N. Korea issues threat over South’s propaganda broadcasts

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea today threatened to attack South Korean loudspeakers that are broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda messages across their shared border, the world’s most heavily armed.

The warning follows Pyongyang’s earlier denial that it had planted land mines on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone that injured two South Korean soldiers last week. Seoul retaliated for those injuries by restarting the loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts for the first time in 11 years and suggested more actions could follow.

The authoritarian North is extremely sensitive about insults of its leader, Kim Jong Un, and tries to isolate its people from any criticism or suggestions that Kim is anything other than powerful and revered.

North Korea’s army said in a statement the broadcasts are equivalent to a declaration of war and that a failure to immediately stop them and take down the loudspeakers would result in “an all-out military action of justice to blow up all means for ‘anti-north psychological warfare”’ on the front lines.

South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye said her government will firmly respond to any North Korean provocation that threatens the safety of South Koreans, and urged Pyongyang to “wake up” from the delusion that it could maintain its regime with provocation and threats, which Park claimed would only result in the North’s isolation and destruction.

Park said that if the North opts for dialogue and cooperation, it will find opportunities to improve the lives of its people. She also urged the North to accept the South’s proposals for building a “peace park” at the DMZ and family reunions.