“South and North Korea reopened their hotlines…after a yearlong communications vacuum that had flared tensions and soured relations,” Reuters reports.
Often described as a “hotline,” the communications channel actually includes multiple lines.
The lines were terminated by North Korea after it complained about a lack of results from the 2019 summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. A hotline direct to Pyongyang operated by the South Korean intelligence agency was never disconnected, according to another media report.
After the hotlines were cut “South Korean officials sometimes used a bullhorn to shout messages across the Joint Security Area (JSA) in Panmunjom, the only spot along the DMZ where troops from both sides stand face to face.”
Even in recent years the hotline used “desktop telephone consoles dating to the 1970s, each the size of a small refrigerator.”
“Two lines run along the so-called eastern and western transportation corridors, where currently unused road and rail lines cross the DMZ. Another is the Red Cross hotline, in the truce village of Panmunjom. And another runs from the South’s Unification Ministry to – or near – the Joint Liaison Office,” says a news report.
Source: Explainer: What we know about inter-Korean hotlines, unique symbol for testy ties | Reuters