South Korea said Monday it was removing loudspeakers used to blare K-pop and news reports to the North, as the new administration in Seoul tries to ease tensions with its bellicose neighbour.

The nations, still technically at war, had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarised zone, Seoul's military said in June after the election of President Lee Jae Myung.

It said in June that Pyongyang stopped transmitting bizarre, unsettling noises along the border that had become a major nuisance for South Korean locals, a day after the South's loudspeakers fell silent.