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A South Korean military officer speaks with his North Korean counterpart using the inter-Korean communication line. (Yonhap News)
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Lines at Panmunjeom and in the West Sea are once again fully operational
The first tangible result of the high-level inter-Korean talks that resumed after a hiatus of 25 months was the restoration of inter-Korean lines of communication. Not only was the hotline at Panmunjeom restored on Jan. 3, before the talks were arranged, but it was confirmed on Jan. 9, the day of the talks, that the military hotline in the West Sea had been restored as well. Both of these communication channels had been severed for one year and 11 months, since the closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex in Feb. 2016. “During the morning meeting, the North Koreans explained that they had reconnected the military hotline on the West Sea. Around 2 pm, we confirmed that the hotline on the West Sea had indeed been reconnected,” said a senior official at the Unification Ministry. “It’s now possible for North and South Korean military officials to speak on the phone using the military hotline on the West Sea. It was agreed to resume normal [inter-Korean] communication on the military hotline at 8 am on Jan. 10,” the official added. The North Koreans were reportedly annoyed that the South had presented the reconnection of the hotline as having taken place on Jan. 9, claiming that they had already reconnected it on Jan. 3. After agreeing to install hotlines linking military situation rooms in Sept. 2002, North and South Korea laid phone lines along the West Sea on Sept. 24 and along the East Sea on Dec. 5 of the following year. The East Sea hotline was maintained even after tours to Mount Kumgang were halted in July 2008, but it was shut down when the North closed its communications office at Mount Kumgang in May 2011. The telephone line itself was destroyed in a forest fire along the east coast in 2013, and this would need to be rebuilt for the hotline to be restored. The hotline on the West Coast was mainly used to confirm the identity and guarantee the safety of North and South Koreans moving across the border at the Kaesong Industrial Complex and other locations. There is speculation that the North’s decision to restore the military communication line on the West Sea prior to the talks is aimed to help the North Korean delegation to the Pyeongchang Olympic Games make an overland crossing into the South. When South Korea’s Defense Ministry officially proposed inter-Korean military talks to halt hostile behavior along the military demarcation line in July 2017, it asked North Korea to repair the military hotline on the West Sea and use that to send a response, but the North made no reply. Significantly, the restoration of the military hotline gives North and South Korea a way not only to prevent unplanned military clashes but also to arrange military talks to follow up on the high-level talks. By Jung In-hwan, staff reporter Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
