9 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
South Korean officials have begun to express their concern at the total silence of North Korea, which has not responded to requests from Seoul for three days to hold the usual minimum security talks between the two countries.
Security officials in Seoul and Pyongyang hold two phone conversations a day as a rule, either through their respective cross-border diplomatic services (on weekdays) or military channels (on weekends).
However, this time North Korea is not answering South Korean calls on either line. South Korean military officials have tried to contact their northern counterparts this Sunday at 09:00, without success, according to the official South Korean news agency Yonhap.
The complete suspension of communications is a rather unusual phenomenon and is occurring as the North conducts tests such as the one on Saturday, which involved a nuclear-capable underwater ‘drone’.
A precedent for this silence took place in 2017, when North Korea broke communication several days before launching a ballistic missile that flew over Japan. The direct line between the two countries was theoretically restored four years later.
