South Korea tried to contact North Korea via cross-border communication lines on Friday but got no response, Seoul said, though media reports this week said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was prepared to restore the lines in early October.
The Unification Ministry said North Korea did not answer South Korea's regular call through the communication lines Friday morning, as well as another attempt in the afternoon.
While Kim gave no specific date for restoring the lines of communication, his comments were seen as an attempt by the North at easing tensions on the divided peninsula.
The North Korean leader said, "the entire Korean nation" would like to "see the earlier recovery of...relations from the present deadlock and durable peace settling" on the Korean Peninsula, in a speech on Wednesday at a session of the country's top legislature, the Supreme People's Assembly, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
The communication lines were reactivated in July after a 13-month shutdown. However, Pyongyang once again cut contact with Seoul after the United States and South Korea carried out joint military drills in August despite its objections.
In June 2020, Pyongyang blew up an inter-Korean liaison office in the country's border city of Kaesong after shutting down all lines of communication with Seoul in retaliation for defectors launching balloons containing leaflets critical of the North.
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