SEOUL – Pyongyang has cut a major military hotline that allows direct communication with Seoul, deeming it no longer necessary following a rise in recent tensions between North and South Korea.

Earlier this month, a Korean Red Cross line running through the “truce village” of Panmunjom was also cut after North Korea declared the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean war to be “void”.

“I, upon authorization, inform the south side that the north-south military communications will be cut off and the members of the north side at the military communications liaison office in the zone under the control of the north