North Korea will cut off all communications with South Korea on Monday evening, according to Yonhap News Agency.
This comes a day after North Korea did not answer its daily inter-communication call with the South. The calls have been going on since 2018 where the two countries conduct 2 phone calls each day at 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. to decrease border tensions.
Pyongyang did not answer the first call Sunday morning but was able to be reached later in the afternoon. North Korea “did not mention anything” about the scheduled call in the morning, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a statement according to Yonhap News.
This came on the lines of North Korea threatening to close a liaison office with the South. North Korean defectors living in the South and human rights activists have flown leaflets containing pro-democracy messages past the border via balloons with some containing portable USB drives with South Korean TV shows and music, which has angered Pyongyang.
Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s sister, denounced the operation based in the South and described it as “evil intention,” according to the country’s propaganda outlet.
The South Korean government does not endorse the leaflet campaign and has enacted legislation to ban the practice. North Korean defector Lee Min Bok, who had flown leaflets for 15 years says, “North Korea keeps control by blocking outside information. To destroy it peacefully, the influx of information is necessary.”
