SEOUL - The Republic of Korea's presidential office said Thursday that the country will resume propaganda broadcasts from Friday noon with loudspeakers in border areas with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Cho Tae-Yong, the first deputy chief of the presidential security office, made the announcement in a press briefing of the planned resumption, which the DPRK had called a "direct act of declaring war."

The ROK military stopped the broadcasting after an agreement reached on Aug 25 last year between top-level military advisers to President of the ROK Park Geun-hye and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula.