North Korea on Tuesday “completely shut down all contact” with South Korea in a decision likely intended to deflect from domestic troubles and send a message to the United States, which remains embroiled in its own turmoil, experts say.
Pyongyang said Tuesday it would cut several key hotlines — including its direct line with the South Korean presidential Blue House — as part of a “first step” in what it described as “phased plans ... to make the betrayers and riff-raff pay for their crimes,” according to the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency.
The report, which cited a meeting of top government officials such as leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, and Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, said the North was also severing lines of communication at an inter-Korean liaison office as well as hotlines between the two militaries.