The Korean summit is to take place at a South Korean building on the southern side of Panmunjom. This means that Kim must cross the border into South Korea in what would be the first such act by a North Korean leader since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. ||||| Seoul (CNN) South Korea's military announced Monday it has turned off loudspeakers that blast propaganda across the highly militarized border with North Korea, in an apparent gesture of goodwill ahead of Friday's historic summit between the two nations' leaders. 
 
 The speakers, which can be heard for miles on the North's side, have been playing on a regular basis since January 2016, when they were turned back on as a response to North Korea 's fourth nuclear test. They broadcast Korean pop music, news and weather forecasts -- snippets of everyday life in the South that are strictly off limits for North Koreans. 
 
 Though North Korea also engages in propaganda broadcasts of its own, it has long objected to the South's use of speakers, and has at times responded to them with artillery fire. 
 
 The move represents a modest concession to Pyongyang just days before its leader, Kim Jong Un, is set to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in during Friday's inter-Korean summit. 
 
 It's the first time the leaders of the two Koreas, which are technically still at war since the Korean War ended with a truce in 1953, will sit down for face-to-face talks in more than a decade. 
 
 South Korean soldiers drow down a cover from the loudspeakers at a military base near the border between South Korea and North Korea on January 8, 2016 in South Korea. 
 
 A spokeswoman for South Korea's Defense Ministry said the decision was made "to ease military tension between the two Koreas and to create a peaceful environment for the upcoming summit." 
 
 Preparations for the meeting are now in full swing, with working-level talks between the two countries starting Monday to hammer out details. The US State Department's point person for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Susan Thornton, is also in Seoul, where she is scheduled to meet with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha. 
 
 Denuclearization a sticking point? 
 
 The summit itself, and a potential upcoming meeting between Kim and Trump, would have been unthinkable last year, when saber-rattling between Washington and Pyongyang combined with North Korea's increased nuclear and ballistic weapons testing to raise tensions dramatically. 
 
 The topic of denuclearization is likely to be high on the summit agenda, but what exactly the term constitutes isn't clear 
 
 US President Donald Trump and his administration are expected to seek the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of Pyongyang's nuclear program, a stated policy goal dating back to the Clinton administration. 
 
 Analysts have said that the North Koreans see denuclearization as a burden both parties must share. If the North were to give up its nuclear weapons, it could ask in return for the United States to remove its nuclear-capable assets from the region, and even remove South Korea from its nuclear umbrella -- a commitment from the US to use its nuclear weapons in defense of allies. 
 
 Moon said Thursday the North Koreans have dropped its long-held demand that the United States withdraw forces from South Korea and that he believes both sides do not differ when it comes to "the concept of denuclearization." 
 
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 Moon: Bright future 
 
 On Saturday, Kim announced Pyongyang had succeeded in its effort to develop nuclear weapons capabilities and would no longer conduct the tests needed to perfect or improve its armaments. 
 
 Those tests, whether firing missiles or detonating nuclear weapons underground, are violations of international law and considered highly provocative actions within the international community. 
 
 Moon on Monday called the decision was a crucial step toward denuclearization. 
 
 "It is a green light that enhances the success of the North-South and NK-US summit," the South Korean leader said, according to a statement released by his office Tuesday. 
 
 "If North Korea goes from a nuclear freeze to complete nuclear dismantlement, a bright future for North Korea can be guaranteed." 
 
 A North Korea source told CNN that Kim has finally decided to open up a new chapter for his nation. Kim has committed himself to the path of denuclearization and will now focus solely on economic growth and improving the national economy, the source said. 
 
 The North Korean leader has realized the best path forward is to normalize relations with other countries, the source added. He is finally being recognized by the international community, and this is a historic, timely opportunity, the source said. 
 
 Though Kim's statement appeared to mark a shift in tone, experts say the specifics of his policy pronouncements were vague enough to give him plenty of wiggle room if North Korea decided to resume weapons testing or development. 
 
 Kim's declaration that he would shutter the country's nuclear test sites Punggye-ri, also rang hollow to some analysts. North Korea's September nuclear test caused a 6.3-magnitude tremor and was believed to have resulted in serious environmental impact, potentially damaging parts of the complex. 
 
 Those measures may not be enough to ease up on the crippling sanctions levied against Pyongyang as punishment for its nuclear and missile tests. 
 
 Trump, who has spearheaded the push to economically and diplomatically isolate North Korea, will reportedly ask Kim to dismantle the country's nuclear arsenal without conceding significant ground on economic sanctions, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. 
 
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 Iran: US not a reliable partner 
 
 Trump is taking a similar hard-line stance when it comes to the nuclear deal with Iran, which was negotiated under US President Barack Obama's administration. 
 
 The current US President has threatened to pull out of the deal unless more is done to stop what he believes is Tehran's destabilizing actions in the Middle East. 
 
 Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, warned that Trump's efforts to redo the Iran deal could stymie his efforts with North Korea. 
 
 "This is not a bilateral agreement between Iran and the United States and withdrawing from it would be seen by the international community as a an indication that the United States is not a reliable partner in the international community," Zarif said in an interview with CBS News. 
 
 "This would be a very bad precedent if the United States sends this message to the international community that the length or the duration of any agreement would depend on the duration of the presidency." 
 
 ||||| SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea turned off loudspeakers blaring bouncy music and other propaganda into North Korea on Monday, silencing weapons of psychological warfare so annoying to the North that its military once fired shots across the border. 
 
 The South’s Defense Ministry said it switched off all batteries of the propaganda loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border, known as the Demilitarized Zone, days before its president, Moon Jae-in, is to join the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, there on Friday for a summit meeting. 
 
 It said the decision was made to help “ease military tensions and create a peaceful mood for the meeting.” The venue — Panmunjom, a “truce village” inside the DMZ — is within the earshot of propaganda broadcasts from both sides. 
 
 “We hope that our move today will result in South and North Korea ending mutual slandering and propaganda against each other and creating a peaceful new beginning,” the ministry said in a statement. ||||| Image copyright Getty Images Image caption South Korea's speakers were blasting pop music and propaganda over the border 
 
 South Korea has stopped broadcasting propaganda via loudspeakers along the border with North Korea, ahead of top-level talks later this week. 
 
 The South has dozens of loudspeakers along the border area, which blast everything from K-pop music to news reports critical of the North. 
 
 The broadcasts can be heard by the North's troops stationed along the border and civilians in the area. 
 
 Seoul said turning them off would help set the tone for Friday's talks. 
 
 North Korea has its own system of speakers along the border, playing reports critical of Seoul and its allies. 
 
 It is not yet known whether it will follow suit and silence them too. 
 
 South Korea said the speakers, which play propaganda over the border at high volume, were turned off in the early hours of Monday morning. 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images/Pool Image caption The broadcasts are designed to sow doubt among North Korean soldiers about the official message on the South 
 
 The move aimed to "ease the military tension between the two Koreas and develop a peaceful summit atmosphere," spokesman Choi Hoi-hyun told reporters. 
 
 "We hope this decision will lead both Koreas to stop mutual criticism and propaganda against each other and also contribute in creating peace and a new beginning." 
 
 North Korea announced at the weekend that it was suspending nuclear tests and closing an atomic test site. The surprise announcement came as the country prepares for historic talks with South Korea and the US. 
 
 South Korea's President Moon Jae-in has called it "a significant decision towards total denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula". 
 
 Pyongyang's leader Kim Jong-un is due to meet Mr Moon next Friday at the truce village of Panmunjom, marking the first inter-Korean summit in over a decade. 
 
 Mr Kim is also due to meet US President Donald Trump by June. It will be the first ever meeting between two sitting leaders of North Korea and the US. 
 
 South Korea's propaganda broadcasts have been running on and off since the Korean War. The idea is to persuade North Korean soldiers to doubt what they are told by their leaders. 
 
 Their use has been increased and decreased over the years, following the diplomatic mood on the peninsula. 
 
 In 2004, the broadcasts were stopped as part of a deal negotiated between both countries. 
 
 But in 2015, after two South Korean soldiers were severely injured by North Korean-planted mines in the demilitarised zone (DMZ), the South turned its speakers back on. The broadcasts were later halted again in 2015 but re-started in 2016 in response to the North testing a hydrogen bomb. 
 
 South Korea did not say whether it planned to restart the broadcasts after the summits. 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption Local residents say the Thaad system could itself become a target 
 
 Also on Monday, South Korean police clashed with protesters near the site of a military base hosting a controversial US anti-missile system. 
 
 The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system (Thaad) is designed to protect against missile attacks from North Korea. 
 
 However, South Koreans in the central county of Seongju, where the system is located, believe it is a potential target for attacks and endangers the lives of those living nearby. 
 
 About 200 residents blocked a road to the site, trying to prevent construction trucks from reaching the base, until they were removed by police on Monday. 
 
 China also strongly opposes the anti-missile system, believing it interferes with the security of its own military operations.
– The last top-level meeting between North and South Korea took place 11 years ago, and tensions have since "risen dramatically," per the Los Angeles Times. And so South Korea is offering an olive branch ahead of this week's summit, silencing the speakers it uses along the border to spew K-pop tunes, weather reports, and other propaganda. South Korea's Defense Ministry said muting the speakers in the Demilitarized Zone was done to "ease military tensions and create a peaceful mood for the meeting," per the New York Times. "We hope that our move today will result in South and North Korea ending mutual slandering and propaganda against each other and creating a peaceful new beginning." South Korea says the speakers—which have annoyed the North so much in the past they've been shot at, per CNN—were turned off early Monday, per the BBC. Loudspeakers have been used by both sides as propaganda producers along the border, although the South's are said to be much louder and more powerful than the North's. Using the speakers to tamp down the cult of personality around North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been a main goal of the South; one tactic both sides engage in is to use the speakers to try to cajole soldiers to cross over to the other side. Although the speakers were muffled after the first summit in 2000, they were plugged back in as the relationship between the two nations worsened, a deterioration exacerbated by the North's nuclear tests. South Korean officials say the North is expected to also turn off its loudspeakers as a gesture of goodwill this time around. The summit in the border "truce village" of Panmunjom reportedly could result in the formal ending of the Korean War.