South Korea to Halt Propaganda Broadcasts in Deal With North

North Korea to Apologize for Border Land Mine

According to new reports this afternoon, several days of marathon talks between South Korea and North Korea have finally borne fruit, with the two nations agreeing to a compromise which will hopefully end the latest round of tensions between them.

Under the deal, South Korea will remove all the propaganda loudspeakers from the border, which it has been using for the last two weeks to brag about how great their president is and how incompetent North Korea’s Kim is by contrast. North Korea will apologize for a land mine placed along the border, which wounded two South Korean soldiers earlier this month.

While those were the obvious concessions for both sides to make, it somehow took several days of posturing for them to get there, as both sides talked up a return to open warfare, instead of the status quo, which itself is just war with a tenuous ceasefire.

The two weeks between land mine and deal saw constant propaganda broadcasts from the south, with North Korea shooting at one of the speakers, and South Korea responding with artillery strikes at several target in the north. This had both sides talking up a full-scale war over the loudspeakers, the land mine, and the lack of a deal.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.