North Korea appears to have suspended the operation of a radio station suspected of sending coded messages to South Korean spies.
Radio Pyongyang, also known as Voice of Korea, is a station known for broadcasting both entertainment programs and audio listings of numbers that experts claim contain messages to agents abroad. It is.
Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un reportedly suspended the functioning of Radio Pyongyang following the decision to realign inter-Korean relations at last month's Workers' Party conference.
According to Yonhap News, the radio station's website also appears to have been abolished.
The station's history dates back to 1945, when it began broadcasting with Kim Il Sung's victory speech after World War II.
North Korean authorities suspended the program in 2000, but restarted it in 2016.
International cooperation between the two Koreas has collapsed in recent weeks after Kim regime forces conducted a series of shelling attacks on the buffer zone between the two Koreas, ostensibly for combat training.
The administration reportedly held a meeting to plan to slowly scale back civilian exchanges with its southern neighbor.
South Korean intelligence estimates that about 260 shells were fired into the area earlier this month. South Korea's Ministry of Defense reportedly fired around 400 rounds in response to the provocation.
Kim said last month that his government “never intends to unilaterally bring about major events through overwhelming force on the Korean peninsula, but we also do not intend to avoid war.”
