South Korea welcomed a North Korean announcement that it would reopen a suspended communication hotline in the truce village of Panmunjeom in the De-militarized Zone between the two Koreas.
“The restoration of the hotline is very significant,” said Seoul’s Chief Presidential Press Secretary Yoon Young-chan, news agencies reported. “It creates an environment where communication will be possible at all times.”
The development comes two days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent a conciliatory message to South Korea in his customary New Year’s speech, and one day after South Korea responded by proposing high-level talks between the two Koreas at Panmunjeom on Tuesday, Jan. 9, next week.
Seoul is hoping that a North Korean presence at the 2018 Winter Olympics, being held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from Feb. 9-25, will provide a springboard for further inter-Korean communication and reconciliation, though Washington remains wary.
A North Korean official announced that the channel would be reopened in Panmunjeom at 3 p.m., Pyongyang time (06:30 GMT) today, on the orders of Kim, newswires reported.
The last significant inter-Korean contact at Panmunjeom took place in November 2015, when ministerial-level defense officials met to defuse tensions prompted by a landmine detonation and an alleged artillery strike from the North.
While the hotline has never been physically disconnected, it is understood that while South Korea makes twice-daily calls, the North Korean side has not picked up since February 2016, when Seoul decided to shutter the inter-Korea industrial complex in Kaesong.
Since them, communications have been problematic; following the daring defection of a North Korean soldier in Panmunjeom in November 2017, the Southern side communicated with the Northern side via loud hailers.
The hotline in the iconic village, with its blue huts and its sentries from North and South eyeballing each other across the painted Military Demarcation Line – the actual border that runs through the 4km-wide DMZ – is a key tool for inter-Korean communications.
The two Koreas do not recognize each other diplomatically, so have no embassies in each other’s capital. Other channels of communication that are sometimes used for inter-Korean communications are the Red Cross, and the respective North and South Korean missions to the United Nations in New York.
A strong nuclear North Korea is the only guarantee of peace in the Korean Peninsula. North Korea must never give up its H-bombs and its ICBMs. If anything, North Korea must increase further its nuclear and ICBMs capabilities.
And what of if South decides to nuclearise
?
NK is already getting scared of the "dotard" thus breaking silence…
Keep dreaming it good for the soul or so they say,N.K. is putting the ball in to S.K. court and that’s where it belongs, not in WASHINGTONS or the C.I.A.’s court ,for Kim knows that Washington has a very long history of screwing things up…
Senator J Iroegbu
If the South ever does go nuclear it will be as a defence against the USA not North Korea. After all the USA is still an army of occupation in South Korea.
Wouldn’t it be great if NK decided to care for its people, instead of threatening everyone with nuclear war?
NK, backed of course, by its buddy the Chinese Communist regime, does not want peace in Asia.
The mad puppet of NK, China’s bad boy, is propped up there, to cause alarm in Asia and countries around the world.
This will, of course backfire on China.
The China regime, who didn’t think this through, will have a nuclear Japanese Warrior nation, on its doorstep.
The Japanese warriors have taught Chinese lessons of war in the past, and God forbid, they may do it again.
Be careful what you wish for China regime!
It would be even greater if the USA removed all its soldiers out of Korea. The Americans are the invaders, the murderers and the rapists. They are the most despicable people on Earth, worse that the infamous Mongols in the thirteenth century. The Americans need to be destroyed and they will be destroyed. Their current President is a dotard and is mentally challenged. He should have been in an asylum for mad people.
Washington provided the photos and used SK to spew out this cynical and shameless accusation,most likely knowing very well the ship was HK registered and charted by a Taiwanese company..which Beijing has no control over.
Michael Chan the day America removes it troop from the south of Korea Korea will be unified