The latest news on North Korea and South Korea. The Demilitarised Zone on the 38th parallel is now the oldest wartime border on Earth. For yes, North Korea never ended the conflict in 1953, and since then the two countries have remained divided and vigilant in an exclusion zone where there are only landmines and many expectant soldiers.
In the past, different South Korean administrations have veered from warmongering and rearmament to conciliation and the pursuit of peace, while Kim Jong Un, his father, and his grandfather before him has kept war as his main trump card to maintain military rule. Right now South Korea is facing some internal challenges, with an interim government at the helm of the country, and is now seeking to ease tensions with its neighbour.
According to Reuters, South Korea has taken a step towards dialogue by switching off loudspeakers that were bombarding the border with anti-regime slogans, seeking to demoralise troops stationed there and any civilians who might hear them. A "practical measure to help ease tensions between the South and the North", the defence ministry said.
North Korea, for its part, refused to sit back down at the negotiating table with South Korea, and Kim Jong Un said recently that South Korea's decision to stop transmissions was "not a job worthy of recognition".