The two Koreas restored their direct communication lines Monday, 55 days after Pyongyang stopped answering Seoul's phone calls in protest of joint military drills by South Korea and the US, Yonhap News Agency reported. The two sides resumed contact through a military hotline and a separate joint liaison office channel, according to South Korean officials. The reconnection of the communication lines is viewed as having "laid the ground for bringing the relations between the two Koreas back on track," the Unification Ministry said in a statement. "Through that stable management of the communication lines and swift resumption of dialogue, the government hopes to begin and advance substantive discussions on improving inter-Korean relations and making peace take root on the Korean Peninsula, along with implementing agreements between the two Koreas," the ministry said. Last year, North Korea blew up a liaison office in its border town of Kaesong and unilaterally cut off all inter-Korean communication lines in anger over anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent from South Korea. The hotlines were briefly back in operation in late July before being suspended by North Korea in protest of an annual combined military exercise of Seoul and Washington. The North has long denounced the allies' annual military exercise as a rehearsal for invasion. The Defense Ministry also expressed hope that the restoration of the hotlines would ease military tensions with North Korea. The ministry said that both of the two direct military communication lines — the western and eastern hotlines — operated normally but Pyongyang has not answered the South's calls via ship-to-ship radio links that use the global merchant marine communication. Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said that cross-border communication lines with South Korea would be restored in early October as part of efforts to improve relations and build peace on the Korean Peninsula, according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency. However, he stressed that it is entirely up to South Korea when it comes to the future trajectory of their ties. The two Koreas are still technically at war, as the Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. The two sides had contact through a military hotline and a separate joint liaison office channel, Yonhap News Agency quoted South Korean officials as saying. Hours earlier, North Korea's state media announced that the lines would be back to normal operation as of 9 a.m. on the day. On Monday, South Korea immediately expressed hope for the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue. In his address to the UN General Assembly last month, South Korean President Moon Jae-in again proposed the declaration of a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea called the offer an "admirable idea", saying that it is willing to discuss improving inter-Korean relations only when Seoul stops double standards against its "defensive" weapons tests and "hostile" policy toward its regime. Unification Minister Lee In-young told reporters on Sunday that South Korea would push to arrange high-level talks with North Korea before the end of this year. — Agencies
