SKorea to intensify border broadcasts

By Alex Jensen

SEOUL (AA) - South Korea is to ramp up efforts to persuade ordinary North Koreans that they are being misled by Pyongyang's plan to develop the country's struggling economy and nuclear weapons in tandem, according to a local report Wednesday.

The plan is to almost double the number of stationary and mobile broadcast stations at the inter-Korean border within this year, and boost the reach of their powerful loudspeakers to more than 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) -- so that Seoul will have 21 fixed points of broadcast and 12 moveable systems at its disposal.

A military official was quoted by news agency Yonhap as spelling out the aim "to correctly inform the North Korean military and people of the reality that the Kim regime is misleading its people and hurting the economy by engaging in the dual policy of seeking nuclear and economic development at the same time".

Authoritarian leader Kim Jong-un laid out the double strategy at a key Pyongyang congress in May, as the North has been operating under crippling global sanctions since March.

The United Nations unveiled its toughest set of punitive measures against North Korea to date following the reclusive state's fourth ever nuclear test at the start of the year and subsequent rocket launch.

Seoul has also been upset by the North's continued testing of ballistic missiles, and has refused to agree to talks with Pyongyang until sanctions truly bite.

South Korea resumed loudspeaker broadcasts to pressure Pyongyang last year after more than a decade of silence in terms of government-led propaganda at the border.

Having failed to persuade the South to engage in dialogue over the last few weeks, North Korea warned Wednesday that the peninsula was on the "brink" of a continuation of the 1950-53 Korean War.

A statement from the Korean People's Army, carried by the state-run KCNA news agency, accused the South Korean side of already blasting its anti-Pyongyang propaganda for more than 16 hours a day -- and claimed that psychological warfare along the border has now "reached an extreme pitch".