INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Authors: TheIndianSubcontinent News AgencyAlong the border, South Korea started taking down its loudspeakers on Tuesday afternoon
(Reuters)SEOUL: North and South Korea began dismantling loudspeakers that blared propaganda across their
heavily fortified border on Tuesday, South Korea's defense ministry said, fulfilling a promise made at last week's historic summit.The moves
are the first practical, if small, steps toward reconciliation after Friday's meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and the
North's Kim Jong Un.Moon, meanwhile, asked that the United Nations help verify North Korea's planned shutdown of its Punggye-ri nuclear test
site in a phone conversation on Tuesday with U.N
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a statement from the presidential Blue House said.Guterres said the requests need approval from the U.N
Security Council, but he wanted to cooperate to build peace on the Korean peninsula and would assign a U.N
official in charge of arms control to cooperate with South Korea, the statement said.Several days before Friday's summit, the North
surprised the world by declaring it would dismantle the test site to "transparently guarantee" its dramatic commitment to stop all nuclear
and missile tests.The Punggye-ri site, where North Korea has conducted all six of its nuclear tests, consists of a system of tunnels dug
beneath Mount Mantap in the northeastern part of the country.Some experts and researchers have speculated the most recent - and by far
largest - blast in September had rendered the entire site unusable
But Kim said there were two additional, larger tunnels that remain "in very good condition". The loudspeakers were used to broadcast
mixture of news, korean pop songs and criticism of North Korea.BORDER LOUDSPEAKERS REMOVEDAlong the border, South Korea started taking down
its loudspeakers on Tuesday afternoon, a defence official said
Activity at several spots along the border indicated North Koreans were doing the same, he said.For decades, with only a few breaks, the two
sides have pumped out propaganda from huge banks of speakers as a form of psychological warfare
The South broadcast a mixture of news, Korean pop songs and criticism of the northern regime, while the North blasted the southern
government and praised its own socialist system.As a sign of goodwill, the South had stopped its propaganda ahead of the summit, and the
North followed suit.The incremental steps come amid speculation about where Kim will meet U.S
President Donald Trump, who said their planned summit could take place in three or four weeks.Trump tweeted Monday that meeting Kim at the
Peace House in the demilitarized zone, where Moon met Kim, would be an excellent venue."There's something that I like about it because
you're there, you're actually there
Where, if things work out, there's a great celebration to be had on the site, not in a third-party country," Trump later told reporters at
the White House.But a senior U.S
official said Singapore was still high on the list of potential sites.Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Saturday Singapore
had not had any request to host the Kim-Trump meeting.South Korea's presidential Blue House seemed to welcome the prospect of hosting the
meeting in Panmunjom, the border village where the Peace House is located."Panmunjom is quite meaningful as a place to erode the divide and
establish a new milestone for peace," a senior presidential official told reporters, asking not be identified because of the sensitivity of
"Wouldn't Panmunjom be the most symbolic place© Thomson Reuters 2018(This story has not been edited by staff and is auto-generated from a
