North Korea halts all communications with South

AKIPRESS.COM - North Korea has said it will cut off all inter-Korean communication lines with the South, including a hotline between the two nation's leaders, BBC reports. The North said this was the first in a series of actions, describing South Korea as "the enemy".
Daily calls, which have been made to a liaison office located in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, will cease from Tuesday.
The two states had set up the office to reduce tensions after talks in 2018.
North and South Korea are technically still at war because no peace agreement was reached when the Korean War ended in 1953.
North Korea "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... from 12:00 on 9 June 2020," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) report said.
Military communication channels will also be cut, North Korea said.
When the liaison office was temporarily closed in January because of Covid-19 restrictions, contact between the two states was maintained by phone.