North Korea Fires Unspecified Ballistic Missile Toward Sea Of Japan - Reports

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th April, 2023) North Korea launched an unspecified ballistic missile toward the Sea of Japan early on Thursday, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing the South Korean Military.

Since Friday morning, North Korea stopped responding to regular calls from the South through inter-Korean communication channels, including the military and the unification ministry lines. The two countries are supposed to hold routine calls twice a day � in the morning and the afternoon � via military and liaison hotlines, but North Korea has not returned calls for the fifth day, according to South Korea's Defense Ministry.

The two Koreas have temporarily halted cross-border communication lines several times in the past. In June 2022, Pyongyang stopped answering calls due to technical glitches caused by rain. In June 2020, Pyongyang cut off communications with its southern neighbor and blew up the joint liaison office in the border town of Kaesong in response to the campaign by North Korean defectors to fly propaganda leaflets on balloons across the border. In July 2021, the North restored the communication channel, only to cut it again in August before finally mending it at the direction of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in October 2021.