Daily US Times: North Korea has restored a hotline with South Korea months after it disabled a cross-border communication channel.
The development comes days after the North’s leader Kim Jong-un said he was willing to restore communication as a conditional olive branch.
Pyongyang warned that the restoration of their relationship to Seoul was dependent on the “attitude of South Korean authorities”.
Pyongyang has also recently been ramping up its military tests.
In less than a month, the North has fired four missiles – a sign that it has no intention of slowing down its arms development.
South Korea’s unification ministry said in a statement on Monday morning that officials from both Koreas exchanged their first phone call since August.
The ministry said: “With the restoration of the South-North communication line, the government evaluates that a foundation for recovering inter-Korean relations has been provided.”
Communication hotlines between the South and the North have been cut – and restored – several times.
In 2020, after a failed summit between Pyongyang and Seoul, North Korea blew up an inter-Korean border office that had been built to improve communications between them.
North Korea severed all communication lines with the South in the same year, including a hotline between both leaders and military communication channels after tensions worsened.
The hotline was briefly restored this August but cut again after South Korea participated in joint military exercises with the United States.
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