Seoul: South Korea and North Korea reopen their hotline on Tuesday after a vacuum of communication for a year that has a blazing tension and deteriorating relationship.
At least 49 hotlines have been arranged between two Koreas since the 1970s, and Seoul sees them as an important tool to prevent misunderstandings from unexpected military developments, especially throughout the scheduled demilitarization zone (DMZ).
The lines are also intended to organize diplomatic meetings, coordinate air and sea traffic, facilitate humanitarian discussions, minimize the impact of natural disasters and cooperate with economic problems.
But isolated north often cut channels during tense bonds, especially when negotiations aimed at dismantling the nuclear and missile programs collapsed.
North Korea decided the hotline on June 9, 2020, after the February 2019 summit failed between North Korean leaders Kim Jong UN and former US President Donald Trump, who according to the South Korean President Jae-in was offered to mediate.
South Korea keep trying to call every day at the same time, 9 am and 4 nights.
North Korea attacked in Seoul, and a few days later, it blew up the joint connecting office launched in Kaesong’s border city in 2018.
It discussed further blows for efforts to persuade Kim to leave nuclear weapons, and the hope of Moon Building erratic neighbor peace.
Before that, the last hotline was cut in 2016 in the midst of North Korean ballistic missiles and nuclear tests.
During that period, South Korean officials sometimes use Bullhorn to shout message in the Joint Security Area (JSA) in Panmunjom, the only place along the DMZ where the troops stand face face.
When the line was restored in 2018, the connecting officials spoke mostly using desktop telephone consoles from the 1970s, each size of a small fridge.
They will usually exchanged greetings or short notifications, and fax machines are used to send detailed messages and documents, Seoul officials said.
This system has a computer screen, a disk drive and USB port, as well as two color-coded phone handsets – red telephone to receive incoming calls from the north and the green for outgoing calls.
There is no other number that can be called, because the cellphone only connects to colleagues with each other.
All systems involve similar equipment, although the newer system is installed in 2009, according to the Ministry of South Unification, which handles inter-Korean affairs and operates most of the hotlines.
The South Korean military has also released photos of their own own desktop Olive-Drab phones labeled “two-sided inter-Korean hotlines.” Little is known about northern equipment.
Moon and Kim have agreed to open a direct line between their office, but Seoul officials said in 2019 that it had never been used.