SEOUL, June 15: An eerie silence descended on the Cold War's last frontier on Tuesday as South and North Korea ended five decades of propaganda warfare conducted around the clock through batteries of high-performance loudspeakers.

The plug was pulled on the ear-splitting broadcasts shortly after midnight for the first time since the 1950-53 Korean war, South Korean military officials said. South Korea also turned off hundreds of electronic signboards after displaying a last flash message which read "Peace, reconciliation and cooperation," they said.

Dozens of high-performance loudspeaker batteries stand on each side of the 248-kilometre border which is also dotted with slogan boards, electronic displays, posters and religious and ideological propaganda.

"Now, we announce the historic fact that our voice of freedom broadcasts are being brought to closure," South Korea said in its last broadcast, according to the defence ministry.

South Korean loudspeaker broadcasts feature news, current affairs, pop music and weather reports destined for a North Korea starved of information from the outside world. North Korea's propaganda is more overtly political, focussing on praise for North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and attacks on the presence of US troops in South Korea.

In a last broadcast, North Korean loudspeakers called for inter-Korean reconciliation and a joint campaign to drive out US troops from the peninsula, according to the South's defence ministry.

"US Imperialists are the arch-enemy blocking the reunification of our fatherland and the root cause of our ordeal of suffering," it said. The two sides will begin dismantling all propaganda materials on the border area on Wednesday.

South Korea operates about 100 propaganda billboards aimed at luring North Korean soldiers to defect. North Korea has erected 200 huge signs and drawings which include slogans such as "The United States is our arch enemy" and "Our general is the lodestar," a reference to Kim Jong-Il.

Also on Tuesday, South and North Korean navies began operating a wired communication network and exchanged information on Chinese boats fishing illegally near a disputed sea border in the Yellow Sea.

Tuesday's communication came a day after warships from the two sides communicated using a common radio frequency, flags and light signals. South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun welcomed the termination of the broadcasts agreed at military talks on June 4. -AFP