North Korea will put psychological-warfare loudspeakers into operation along the entire border with South Korea within October, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement carried by state media KCNA and reported by Reuters and the Associated Press on Wednesday.

Source: Reuters via KELO-FM

Kim said North Korea's tactical hunting units were taking up new positions, according to KCNA. She also corrected KCNA's earlier report on timing, saying she had visited several border sites that morning — Wednesday — with Army Marshal Pak Jong-chon, not the previous day, according to South Korean reporting on the statement.

Pak told border troops to take 'prompt and resolute action' if South Korean forces threaten their safety, KCNA reported, and dismissed Seoul's allegations that North Korean troops had crossed the Military Demarcation Line as an 'absurd assertion'. He urged soldiers to turn the border into an 'impregnable fortress', Reuters reported.

Kim called the fortification of the southern border irreversible and a permanent line between what Pyongyang now calls two hostile states. North Korea has been adding walls, barbed wire, mines and anti-tank barriers along the frontier since 2024.

What Seoul says, and why the risk is rising

South Korea says Pyongyang has sent up to 7,000 workers to the border this year and that there have been about 50 crossings of the Military Demarcation Line, according to Reuters reporting of Seoul's position — figures Pyongyang rejects. Seoul also says North Korean mines caused a border blast last month that seriously wounded two South Korean soldiers, and it has called on the North to suspend the fortification work.

The loudspeaker restart revives a psychological-warfare tool both Koreas have used in past crises. No clash was reported on Wednesday, and the claims on each side are attributed above to the side that made them.