South Korea's new liberal president, Lee Jae Myung, said Friday that he will seek to restore a 2018 military agreement with North Korea aimed at reducing border tensions and urged Pyongyang to respond to Seoul's efforts to rebuild trust and revive dialogue.

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday dismissed South Korean claims the North is removing some of its loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border, mocking the government in Seoul for clinging to hopes of renewed diplomacy between the war-divided rivals.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has hailed the country's solidarity with Russia as "infinite might" in his first public speech marking the Korean Peninsula's liberation from Japan's colonial rule 80 years ago but made no mention of relations either with South Korea or the United States,