North Korea cuts communication link with ‘puppet traitor’ South amid US drills

Name: North Korea goes silent for 3 days as military hotline calls from Seoul go unanswered
Uploaded: 2023-04-10T06:32:13.000Z
Duration: 2 min 23 s
Description: North Korea goes silent for 3 days as military hotline calls from Seoul go unanswered

Seoul said on Monday that the North could have ‘unilaterally cut-off’ a communications link between the two Koreas

It comes after North Korea slammed the US and its ‘puppet state’ allies Japan and South Korea for their ‘war maniacs’ reckless moves’

Reading Time:2 minutes

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A South Korean official talks on the phone with a North Korean counterpart
using a communications link at the border village of Panmunjom between the two Koreas. Photo: South Korea Unification Ministry/Yonhap via AP

Bloomberg

Published: 2:32pm, 10 Apr 2023

North Korea appears to be purposefully cutting a communication link with South Korea as it ratchets up tensions by testing new weapons and denouncing its neighbour as a “puppet traitor” for holding military drills with the US.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry said on Monday that North Korea failed to respond for a fourth straight day to regularly held calls on an inter-Korean liaison communications channel. The calls are normally held on weekdays at 9am and 5pm.

“We’re weighing the possibility of a unilateral cut-off” by Pyongyang, spokesman Koo Byoung-sam told reporters at a news briefing. He added this is the first time since October 2021 that all inter-Korean military lines or liaison calls have been stopped for more than a day.

The two Koreas, which are technically still at war, don’t have regular phone service. They set up hotlines in 2018 after a series of summits aimed at decreasing tensions on their heavily armed border. But North Korea has previously shut the communications links in displays of anger.

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North Korea goes silent for 3 days as military hotline calls from Seoul go unanswered

“I believe it is a part of its political-diplomatic response, a way of expressing its strong disgruntlement against the US and South Korea’s joint exercises,” said Go Myong-hyun, a senior fellow of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.