(2nd LD) N. Korea responds to closing call via inter-Korean liaison line despite missile test

All News 18:36 October 04, 2022

(ATTN: REWRITES headline, lead; UPDATES with latest development throughout)

SEOUL, Oct. 4 (Yonhap) -- Daily communications between the two Koreas via a cross-border liaison line resumed Tuesday following a temporary suspension, officials said, amid growing tensions over Pyongyang's intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) launch earlier in the day.

The government earlier said North Korea did not respond to an opening call via the joint liaison hotline at 9 a.m. and it was trying to find out the reason amid the possibility of a technical problem.

Later in the day, the unification ministry said the North answered the daily 5 p.m. closing call as usual.

The hourslong suspension of inter-Korean communications came after North Korea fired an IRBM into the Pacific earlier in the day, its first IRBM launch in eight months.

Throughout the day, a separate military hotline was in normal operation.

The two Koreas hold phone calls twice a day via their joint liaison office channel.

In June, North Korea did not respond to a regular hotline call apparently due to technical glitches caused by heavy rains.

The North has recently ratcheted up tensions on the peninsula with a series of missile tests amid speculation that a nuclear test is imminent.

In July 2021, the North restored the inter-Korean hotline, about a year after it severed the contact channel in protest of Seoul activists' leaflet campaigns critical of Pyongyang. The liaison line was again cut off in October last year and restored later.