▲ This file photo, provided by the unification ministry, shows a South Korean liaison officer talking to his North Korean counterpart at the Seoul bureau of their joint liaison office on Oct. 4, 2021. After a two-month suspension, the two Koreas restored cross-border communication lines that Pyongyang suspended in protest of an annual combined military exercise of South Korea and the United States. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

(LEAD) N Korea-hotline

(LEAD) N. Korea unresponsive to regular contact via inter-Korean liaison line for 6th day

(ATTN: UPDATES with latest info in 2nd para)

SEOUL, April 12 (Yonhap) -- North Korea remained unresponsive to daily routine calls with South Korea through an inter-Korean liaison communication channel for the sixth straight day Wednesday, Seoul's unification ministry said.

The North has not answered the daily calls from the South via the liaison line since last Friday, including both opening and closing calls as of late Wednesday afternoon, according to the ministry. Seoul's routine calls via the militaries' East and West seas communication lines also went unanswered.

The two Koreas typically hold two phone calls daily, at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., as part of communication between liaisons.

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 liaison line was again cut off in August that year for about two months in apparent protest against Seoul-Washington's military exercises.

The latest suspension of the hotlines comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula following the North's recent weapons tests in protest of joint military drills between South Korea and the United States.

On Tuesday, South Korean Unification Minister Kwon Young-se issued a rare statement expressing "strong regret" over the North's "unilateral and irresponsible" move.

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