UN forces last week tried to counter North Korean claims that the exercises were a smokescreen for an invasion by promising to keep the hotline open, giving Pyongyang advance warning of anything that could cause a misunderstanding.
North Korea's official KCNA news agency quoted an army spokesman as saying: “It is nonsensical to maintain the normal channels of communication when the South Korean puppets are in a frenzy about these military exercises, levelling their guns at fellow countrymen in league with foreign forces.”
Severing military communications had an immediate effect on workers trying to reach South Korea's investment zone at Kaesong in North Korea. Some 726 South Koreans could not reach their factories in Kaesong yesterday because all crossings require clearance on the military hotline.