A South Korean government official contacts the North Korean side via a hotline at the border village of Panmunjom (AP Photo).
Yonhap news agency quoted South Korean officials as saying that North Korea did not answer regular calls in the morning and afternoon of April 8 after a similar move on April 7.
South and North Korea maintain daily exchanges in the morning (at 9:00 a.m.) and afternoon (at 5:00 p.m.) through a cross-border communication line and a military hotline.
While the cross-border communication line operates on weekdays, the military hotline makes calls on weekends.
"North Korea has not responded to regular calls without any reason," a South Korean military official said. "We will monitor the situation, including the possibility of technical problems on the North Korean line."
Pyongyang has previously blamed such incidents on technical reasons. In June 2022, Pyongyang did not answer a regular hotline call from Seoul, apparently due to technical problems caused by heavy rain.
In July 2021, North Korea restored an inter-Korean hotline, about a year after cutting off the channel to protest a leaflet campaign by Seoul activists criticizing Pyongyang. The line was cut again in August of that year and restored later.
The latest incident comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula following recent weapons tests by North Korea in protest against joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States.
Earlier in the day, North Korean state media reported that the country conducted a test detonation of its Haeil-2 underwater nuclear-capable unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) earlier this week. During the test, the UAV traveled 1,000 km underwater for 71 hours and 6 minutes and successfully hit a simulated target.
Previously, North Korea also accused the US and South Korea of pushing tensions to the brink of nuclear war by continuously conducting joint military exercises involving many modern military weapons.
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