South Korean army K-55 self-propelled howitzers move during an exercise against possible attacks by North Korea in Pocheon, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Wednesday, March 27, 2013. North Korea said Wednesday that it had cut off a key military hotline with South Korea that allows cross border travel to a jointly run industrial complex in the North, a move that ratchets up already high tension and possibly jeopardizes the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. AP/Ahn Young-joon
SEOUL—North Korea said Wednesday it was cutting a military hotline with South Korea, meaning all direct inter-government and military contact has been suspended after it previously cut a Red Cross link.
“From now, the North-South military communications will be cut off,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted a military official as saying.
“Under the situation where a war may break out any moment, there is no need to keep up North-South military communications,” the official told a South Korean counterpart before the hotline was disconnected.
He said the link would remain severed as long as the South’s “anachronistic hostile acts continue.”
Several weeks ago North Korea severed the Red Cross hotline used by the two governments to communicate in the absence of diplomatic relations.