Pyongyang remains unresponsive to Seoul's calls over hotlines

North Korea on Friday remained unresponsive to South Korea's regular calls via military and liaison hotlines after leader Kim Jong-un offered to restore severed cross-border communication lines in early October.
"North Korea did not answer the opening call through the inter-Korean liaison office at 9 a.m.," a Unification Ministry official said.

The calls through military hotlines also went unanswered, another official said.

North Korea did not pick up afternoon calls at 5 p.m. either, Yonhap News Agency quoted the two officials as saying.

While addressing a session on Wednesday, Kim said that he will restore cross-border communication lines with South Korea in early October as part of efforts to improve tense relations.

North Korea blew up the liaison office in its border town of Kaesong created in 2018 to promote cross-border exchanges and unilaterally cut off all communication lines with South Korea in June last year in anger over anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent from the South.

The hotlines were back in operation in late July, but Pyongyang began refusing Seoul's regular calls again two weeks later as it bristled at joint military drills by South Korea and the US that the North has long denounced as a rehearsal for invasion.- IANS