The drills, which will kick off next week, are a "direct military provocation" against North Korea, Pyongyang said.

North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea's military said Saturday, days after Seoul's new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier.

South Korea’s military said Saturday it detected North Korea removing some of its loudspeakers from the inter-Korean border, days after the South dismantled its own front-line speakers used for anti-North Korean propaganda broadcasts,