Seoul: North and South Korea has restored cross-border communication, with officials exchanging their first phone call Monday after dropping it in August.
The restoration arrived only a few days after Pyongyang triggered international care with a series of missile tests in the range of several weeks, pushing the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting.
Both Korea signaled a disbursement surprise in the relationship at the end of July by announcing the return of cross-border communication – interrupted more than a year earlier – but Detente was short-lived, because North Korea stopped answering calls just two weeks later.
The Ministry of Unification of Seoul confirmed that the official from the two rivals exchanged their first phone call since August on Monday morning.
Meanwhile, the Southern Defense Ministry confirmed that cross-border military communication has also been continued.
“With the recovery of the South-North Communication Path, the government evaluates that the foundation to restore inter-Korean relations has been given,” said the Unification Ministry in a statement.
“The government hopes …
quickly continues the dialogue and started a practical discussion to restore inter-Korean relations.” Previously Monday North Korean leader Kim Jong UN “said the intention to restore the interrupted northern communication lines”, the official North Korean news agency KCNA.
It was reported that the move was an effort to build “lasting peace” on the Korean Peninsula.
But an analyst played the restoration Monday as a “symbolic” gesture, noted the launch of North Korean missiles.
“Even if this leads to talks, we can enter a new phase where North Korea is involved in dialogue but continues to provide simultaneous provocation,” Park Won-Gon said, a North Korean study professor at the University of Ehha Womans.
North Korea unilaterally decided all the official military and political communication links in June last year for activists who sent anti-pyongyang flyers across the border.
Both parties said on July 27 this year that all lines were restored.
The announcement with them, which coincided with the final warning of the Korean War, was the first positive development since a series of peaks between Kim and the South President of Jae-in in 2018 failed to achieve a significant breakthrough.
They also revealed that when Kim and Moon have exchanged a series of letters since April where they agreed that reassigning a hotline will be a productive first step in booting between their second rivals, although the end of 1950-53 they conflict, still technically fighting.
But cross-border communication lasted for two weeks, with the north dropping them in protests at the Joint US-South Korea Military.
In the period since then, Pyongyang has held a series of missile tests that raise tensions.
In September, it was launched what he said was a long-distance cruise missile, and earlier this week tested what was described as a hypersonic gliding vehicle, which according to the South Korean military seemed to be in the early stages of development.
On Friday it was said to have successfully fired new anti-aircraft missiles.
Pyongyang slammed the UN security week to hold an emergency meeting on missile tests, accuse member countries playing with “time bombs”.
North and South Korea restore cross-border hotlines
