North Korea and South Korea restored earlier today (at 03:00 Greek time) their communication channels, telephone and fax connections, Seoul announced today, after shut down in August and a series of test rocket launches from Pyongyang.
Officials from the two countries took part in a telephone conversation this morning, the South Korean Ministry of Unification said in a press release.
“The government estimates that with the restoration of the South-North communication line, a basis has been laid for the renewal of inter-Korean relations”, according to the text, as broadcast by AMPE.
Seoul hopes that “dialogue will resume quickly and practical discussions will be held to restore inter-Korean relations.”
The South Korean Ministry of Defense also confirmed at the same time that communication between the two countries’ armies had been restored.
The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “It has expressed its intention to restore the two countries’ communication channels,” the North Korean official KCNA news agency had earlier reported, explaining that the decision was part of an effort to bring “lasting peace” to the peninsula.
However analysts downplay the evolution, referring to a gesture of a “symbolic” nature and highlighting recent missile tests by both countries.
For Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Igua University for Girls, “Even if this leads to talks, we may enter a new phase in which North Korea will engage in dialogue, but at the same time in challenges “.
The communication that was cut in August and the tension
Communication between Seoul and Pyongyang was cut off in August by a North Korean decision to protest joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States. They were restored just a week earlier, for the first time in about a year.
THE intensity went up after the lines were cut. North Korea has warned of a new “security crisis” and has launched a series of missile launches, including a supersonic missile, a new anti-aircraft missile and a “strategic” cruise missile that could potentially carry a nuclear warhead.
The tests sparked outrage and condemnation from several countries and the emergency convening of the UN Security Council. Pyongyang has criticized the latest move, accusing member states of the United Nations’ top body of “playing with a time bomb”.
The tests also showed that the isolated country continues to develop increasingly advanced systems, against the background of the complete impasse in which the talks with the US have reached after the failed 2019 summit in Hanoi with the participation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then US President Donald Trump.
While accusing Washington of “hostile policy”, Pyongyang appears willing to improve bilateral relations with Seoul if the south abandons what it calls a “two-meter-two-station” policy.
Analysts say Pyongyang’s carrot-and-whip approach is aimed at securing the country international recognition as a nuclear power and at a wedge into Seoul’s relationship with Washington, counting on the South Korean president’s intention to leave field of diplomacy before completing his term in May 2022.
Recently, the South Korean president called for a formal declaration of an end to the Korean War (1950-1953), which had ended with a truce – not a peace agreement – which means that technically the two sides have been at war for more than half a century. .
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