North Korea Restores South Korea Hotline Cut for Two Months

North Korea restored a hotline with South Korea it had left silent for about two months, a gesture of reconciliation after Pyongyang’s tests of new weapons designed to strike U.S. allies in the region had ratcheted up tensions.

North Korean officials answered a liaison phone call Monday, South Korean officials said. A few days earlier, leader Kim Jong Un told his parliament in Pyongyang to resume communications on the hotlines established in 2018 after he and South Korean President Moon Jae-in held a series of summits aimed at decreasing tensions on their heavily armed border.

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“It’s apparently dangling hopes for things Moon desperately wants, like a war-ending declaration and a final summit before leaving office, while perhaps attempting to influence the presidential election in favor of the South’s left and Pyongyang,” said Duyeon Kim, an adjunct senior fellow in Seoul with the Center for a New American Security.

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