North Korea Reopens Communication With South Korea After 14-Month Silence

North Korea on Tuesday reopened communications lines with South Korea after a 14-month-long hiatus, the two countries separately announced.

North Korea leader Kim Jong Un’s re-engagement with its neighbor came on a symbolic day ​— the 68th anniversary of the truce that ended the Korean War in 1953. This move represents both nations’ “big stride” to reconcile their mutual trust.

“The two leaders agreed to revive trust and advance the inter-Korean relationship as soon as possible,” South Korea’s presidential Blue House said in a statement.

North Korea cut all communication ties with the South around June 2020, deeming the country its “enemy” for not silencing anti-North Korea activists.

Since then, South Korean officials made routine daily calls on the military and other inter-Korean hotlines but officials from the North refused to pick up, the New York Times reported.

The situation began to take a turn for the better in April, when South Korea President Moon Jae-in and Kim started exchanging letters discussing the restoration of their communication, ​both countries’ governments said Tuesday.

Experts have emphasized that North and South Korea’s renewed lines of communications are a positive but small step forward towards sustainable peace and the denuclearization of the peninsula.

Kim, meanwhile, remains disinterested in re-engaging in U.S-led conversations about its nuclear weapons.