Inter-Korean tension heightening as North Korea shuts communication channels

A phone set up at Cheong Wa Dae as a hotline between leaders of two Koreas. North Korea said, Tuesday, it would cut all communication lines with the South, including the hotline. Yonhap

By Kang Seung-woo

Inter-Korean relations are again returning to the era of constant tension, with North Korea cutting all communication lines with the South and defining the country once more as an "enemy." Experts think that the North may take further measures as it has vowed, including military provocations.

The tension-stoking move came days after Pyongyang strongly complained about Seoul failing to stop North Korean defectors and activists from flying anti-North leaflets across the border tethered to balloons.

"The disgusting riff-raff has committed hostile acts against North Korea by taking advantage of the South Korean authorities' irresponsible stance and with their connivance. They dared to hurt the dignity of our supreme leadership and mock the sacred mental core of all our people. This was a sign of hostility to all our people," the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported early Tuesday. "They should be forced to pay dearly for this."

As a first step, the Kim Jong-un regime said it would cut off all cross-border communication lines at noon ― a decision made by Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), and Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader's sister and first vice department director of the committee.

"Accordingly, the relevant field of our side will completely cut off and shut down the liaison line between the authorities of the North and the South, which has been maintained through the North-South joint liaison office, the East and West Seas communication lines between the militaries of the North and the South, the inter-Korean trial communication line and the hotline between the office building of the Central Committee of the WPK and Cheong Wa Dae from 12 p.m. on June 9, 2020," the KCNA said.

Hours after the announcement, the North refused to answer calls made by South Korean officials from the inter-Korean liaison office and military channels. On Monday, the North did not answer the liaison office's daily morning phone call, but did so in the afternoon, while the military hotlines operated normally.

In response, the government urged the North to keep the communication lines open.

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"(The) lines between the South and the North are a basic means of communication and should be maintained in accordance with inter-Korean agreements," a unification ministry official said. "While abiding by inter-Korean agreements, the government will make efforts to ensure peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula."

Defense ministry spokesman Choi Hyun-soo said this was the first time the North has not answered military phone calls from the South since the hotlines were restored in 2018.

The presidential office remained cautious about the announcement by Pyongyang, saying it needed to see how the situation develops.

A North Korean solider stands guard at a sentry post across the inter-Korean border in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday. Earlier in the day, North Korea announced it was disconnecting all inter-Korean communications lines at noon, citing anti-Pyongyang leaflets recently sent across the border by North Korean defectors in the South. / Yonhap

In a statement last Thursday, Kim Yo-jong warned that if South Korea continued to tolerate the distribution of the propaganda by North Korean defectors and other activist groups, the North would cancel the inter-Korean military tension-reducing agreement reached at the inter-Korean summit in September 2018. The agreement bans all hostile acts including loud-speaker broadcasting and the scattering of leaflets along the border. Kim also threatened to fully withdraw from the suspended Gaeseong Industrial Complex and close the joint liaison office.

"The North's decision means that inter-Korean relations have returned to the situation before the April 27 inter-Korean summit. Given that the hotline between the two heads of state is a symbol of trust, I am concerned that their personal relationship may be broken," Kyungnam University professor Kim Dong-yub said.

On Friday, the North's United Front Department (UFD), which handles inter-Korean affairs, said in a statement, "Even though we start things that can be annoyance to the South in the area bordering it, it will be left with no words until the bill (to ban anti-Pyongyang leaflets) is adopted and put into effect."

Citing the statement, experts expressed concerns over possible provocation from the North, with the country nullifying the military agreement.

"The Kim regime likely sees this as a low-cost, easily reversible way of expressing its displeasure. It may have domestic political priorities and is probably trying to drive wedges between Washington and Seoul and between South Korean progressives and conservatives," said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

"The fundamental problem is that North Korea appears unwilling to play by any rules but its own and continually fails to live up to its end of an agreement."

Van Jackson, a professor of Victoria University of Wellington and former Pentagon official, said the North's decision was aimed at urging the United States to return to the negotiating table.

"North Korea's actions toward the South ― including cutting off communication ― are efforts at signaling or pressuring, but they're aimed at the United States rather than South Korea," he said.

"North Korean cooperation with the South is inherently driven more by what's going on in U.S.-North Korea relations than with the latest Cheong Wa Dae initiative. I'm sympathetic to a lot of what President Moon Jae-in is trying to do, but I don't think any of his peace initiative approach can take hold unless the United States is playing a more constructive and active role in stabilizing things with North Korea."