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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. 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 7th day
(ATTN: UPDATES with more details in para 3)
SEOUL, April 13 (Yonhap) -- North Korea did not respond to daily routine calls with South Korea via an inter-Korean liaison communication channel for the seventh straight day Thursday, Seoul's unification ministry said.
The North's unresponsiveness came as the secretive regime fired an intermediate- or longer-range ballistic missile toward the East Sea earlier in the day, according to the South's military.
North Korea did not answer the 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. regular calls, extending its refusal to respond to cross-border regular contact into the seventh straight day, according to the ministry. Seoul's opening calls via the militaries' East and West sea communication lines also went unanswered.
The latest suspension of communication came amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the wake of the North's weapons tests in protest of joint military drills between South Korea and the United States.
Unification Minister Kwon Young-se on Tuesday issued a rare statement expressing his "strong" regret over the North's "unilateral and irresponsible" move.
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