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South Korea's spy agency suspends broadcasts targeting North Korean regime

Published: 21 Jul. 2025, 16:58

National Intelligence Service Director Lee Jong-seok speaks during a parliamentary session at the National Assembly in western Seoul on June 26. [YONHAP]

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) suspended all of its decades-old broadcasts targeting the North Korean regime this month, anti-Pyongyang broadcasters said Monday, as the Lee Jae Myung administration works to improve strained ties with Pyongyang.

“The NIS's radio broadcasting channels targeting North Korea have halted their transmissions,” Lee Kwang-baek, president of South Korea's Unification Media Group, told Yonhap News Agency. The private media group focuses on radio broadcasts aimed at North Korea.

Kim Seung-chul, head of another anti-North broadcaster, North Korea Reform Radio, also listed Voice of the People and Echo of Hope among the NIS's anti-North Korea radio channels that have stopped broadcasting recently.

The spy agency is also reported to have suspended its television broadcasts targeting the North, although the organization declined to confirm the suspensions.

Those channels, which have been in operation for decades through changes of government, have transmitted propaganda messages targeting North Korea, promoting the values of South Korea's free society and criticizing the North Korean regime.

The suspensions came as the Lee government works to ease military tensions and revive dialogue with North Korea. Shortly after taking office last month, the Lee administration suspended the military's loudspeaker broadcast campaigns targeting North Korea along the inter-Korean border and urged a halt to propaganda leaflet campaigns by civic groups.

Yonhap