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| ▲ 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. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
(LEAD) N Korea-hotline
(LEAD) N. Korea unresponsive to routine inter-Korean liaison, military hotline calls for 4th day
(ATTN: RECASTS headline, lead; UPDATES with more details throughout)
SEOUL, April 10 (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.
The North did not answer routine opening phone calls at 9 a.m. after it stopped responding to calls from the South on Friday morning, according to Seoul's unification ministry. Calls from the liaison hotline do not take place on weekends.
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.
Calls through a military hotline also went unanswered for the fourth straight day Monday, according to the South's defense ministry.
It is not known why the North remains unresponsive to such daily calls with the South.
But there is the possibility that the secretive regime is intentionally refusing to answer the calls 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.
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 apparently due to its protest against Seoul-Washington's military exercises.
Why has North Korea stopped answering the South?[https://youtu.be/1Z4KKQAOOgs]
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