SEOUL, South Korea  Less than a week after the appointment of a new leadership hierarchy in North Korea, the South Korean defense minister said that his country’s military would initiate a new and expanded propaganda war if provoked by the North.

After six years of quiet along the border, South Korea has reinstalled 11 sets of psychological warfare loudspeakers, Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said Tuesday in Seoul. He said his ministry had switched its transmitters to the easier-to-receive AM band and was ready to send thousands of AM radios and propaganda leaflets across the border using helium balloons.

A continuing balloon and leaflet campaign by South Korean civilians has angered the North Korean government, which suggests that it has been effective. The leaflets ridicule the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, and call for people in the North to rise up. North Korea insisted that the leaflet issue be put on the agenda of recent bilateral military talks.

If the South undertakes a new propaganda war, the North has warned that its artillery will fire across the border to destroy the loudspeakers. It also said it would shut down a jointly operated industrial complex in the North Korean town of Kaesong.