North Korea on Monday reestablished its direct communication lines with the On and urged the neighboring country to maintain a “positive” attitude to channel their bilateral relations.
“The relevant bodies will reestablish all north-south communication lines from 9:00 on October 4 (00:00 GMT on the same day)”, reported the state news agency KCNA.
Shortly after that time, the South Korean government confirmed that the North had answered its call and that military communications had been reactivated, some two months after Pyongyang cut communications in mid-August in protest of joint military exercises in Seoul and South Korea. Washington.
Today’s reestablishment of these lines comes days after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, declared in a speech before the Supreme People’s Assembly (Parliament) his intention to resume communication with the South at the beginning of October.
In the statement in which the North Korean agency announced the return of the communication, the Kim regime urged South Korea to carry out “Positive efforts” for the improvement of their relationships and in the face of “Bright prospects for the future” Between both.
North Korea it dynamited the office that both governments had in the Kaesong border territory and cut off all its communications with the South in June 2020, in protest at the sending from the neighboring country of leaflets critical of the regime.
The lines returned to work at the end of last July, after more than a year, but Pyongyang stopped answering calls from Seoul again in August for the aforementioned maneuvers, which the North considers a simulated invasion of its territory and a threatened to its sovereignty.
The South Korean government sees the reestablishment of communication as a positive sign and hopes it will contribute to resuming bilateral talks to resolve pending issues such as the adoption of a peace treaty that was never signed after the 1950-1953 civil war on the peninsula. or denuclearization.
The reactivation of communications comes after an increase in weapons tests in Pyongyang, which in the last three weeks has announced four, to which Seoul has responded by showing military muscle and a willingness to dialogue.