N. Korea unresponsive to routine inter

This photo provided by the unification ministry shows a South Korean military officer speaking over the phone with a North Korean military counterpart via an inter-Korean direct communication line, Oct. 4, 2021. Yonhap

North Korea remained unresponsive to daily routine calls with South Korea through an inter-Korean liaison communication channel and a military hotline for the fourth straight day Monday, according to the South's government.

South Korea's unification ministry said the North appears to have "unilaterally" cut off the liaison communication line, after the country did not answer routine opening calls at 9 a.m.

The two Koreas are supposed to hold phone calls twice a day, at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., via their joint liaison channel. But the North stopped responding to such calls Friday morning. Calls from the liaison hotline do not take place on weekends.

Calls through a military hotline also went unanswered for the fourth straight day Monday, according to the South's defense ministry.

The unification ministry said it puts more weight on the North's "unilateral" move to block the liaison communication channel.

"While monitoring the situation, the government is reviewing how to respond (to the North's move). It will not take long for us to issue an official stance," Koo Byoung-sam, the ministry's spokesperson, told a regular press briefing.

It is unclear why the North remains unresponsive to such daily calls with the South.

But there is the possibility that the North may be using the suspension of communication to protest joint military drills between South Korea and the United States or the latest release by the ministry of a report on North Korea's human rights.

A hotline telephone at the Seoul branch of the joint inter-Korean liaison office, July 27, 2021 / Courtesy of Ministry of Unification

Daily phone calls via inter-Korean communication channels went unanswered in the past due to technical reasons. Last June, Pyongyang did not respond to a regular hotline call apparently due to technical glitches caused by heavy rains.

In July 2021, the North restored the inter-Korean hotline, about a year after it severed the contact channel in protest of Seoul activists' leaflet campaigns critical of Pyongyang.

The country again did not answer calls via the liaison line in August that year for about two months apparently due to its protest against Seoul-Washington's military exercises.

Amid concerns that the absence of regular contact between the two Koreas could lead to provocations by the North, a U.S. RC-135V Rivet Joint reconnaissance plane from Okinawa, Japan, flew over the Yellow Sea, the greater Seoul area and other parts of the peninsula, according to aviation trackers and military sources. (Yonhap)

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