Koreas end propaganda blitz along border

The plug was pulled on the ear-splitting broadcasts shortly after midnight for the first time since the 1950-53 Korean War, South Korean military officials said.

South Korea also turned off hundreds of electronic signboards after displaying a last flash message, which read "Peace, reconciliation and cooperation," they said.

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Dozens of high-performance loudspeaker batteries stand on each side of the 248-kilometer (154-mile) border which is also dotted with slogan boards, electronic displays, posters and religious and ideological propaganda.

"Now, we announce the historic fact that our voice of freedom broadcasts are being brought to closure," South Korea said in its last broadcast, according to the defence ministry.

South Korean loudspeaker broadcasts feature news, current affairs, pop music and weather reports destined for a North Korea starved of information from the outside world.

North Korea's propaganda is more overtly political, focussing on praise for North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and attacks on the presence of US troops in South Korea.

In a last broadcast, North Korean loudspeakers called for inter-Korean reconciliation and a joint campaign to drive out US troops from the peninsula, according to the South's defence ministry.

"US Imperialists are the arch-enemy blocking the reunification of our fatherland and the root cause of our ordeal of suffering," it said.

The two sides will begin dismantling all propaganda materials on the border area on Wednesday.

South Korea operates about 100 propaganda billboards aimed at luring North Korean soldiers to defect. North Korea has erected 200 huge signs and drawings which include slogans such as "The United States is our arch enemy" and "Our general is the lodestar," a reference to Kim Jong-Il.

"One concern about ending the propaganda war is the night-time quiet that can make our soldiers on night duty weary and feel sleepy," First Lieutenant Kim Kyong-Chun, a front-line army platoon leader, told Yonhap news agency.