Moon, Kim to open direct hotline soon

By Kim Bo-eun

A direct telephone line connecting the leaders of the North and South may be installed as early as this week, as the Koreas prepare for the summit to take place later this month.

A working-level meeting to discuss the matter was held on Saturday, and another is set to take place this week.

In Saturday's meeting the two sides discussed where the line would be installed, as well as measures to prevent wiretapping, officials said.

“Working-level talks are scheduled to be held this week,” unification ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun said, Monday. “The meeting will address communication matters as well as other affairs relating to security, protocol and press coverage of the summit.”

The Koreas agreed the hotline is to be installed at the meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the South Korean envoys in Pyongyang last month.

It will not be the first direct inter-Korean telephone line to be established.

A hotline between leaders of the North and South was set up after the first inter-Korean summit between South Korean president Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000.

The line was maintained during the following Roh Moo-hyun administration, which continued a policy of engagement with the North.

However, it was cut off in 2008 due to the Lee Myung-bak administration's hard-line policies.

No calls are known to have been made using the hotline.

Discussions to restore the line failed to take place as inter-Korean relations deteriorated further due to a North Korean torpedo attack on the South Korean naval frigate Cheonan that killed 46 sailors of the South, and the North's shelling of the South's Yeonpyeong Island, in 2010.

A high-level meeting that will take place on April 18 will likely decide when the first call using the newly established hotline will be made between the leaders.

It is set to take place before the leaders' summit on April 27 at the truce village of Panmunjeom.