North Korea is picking up the phone again, and history shows that major developments in inter-Korean relations could be just around the corner.

On Tuesday morning, both North and South Korea confirmed that key communication channels had been reestablished, after nearly 13 months of silence from Pyongyang since it cut all its hotlines with Seoul in June 2020.

This is hardly the first time the Kim regime has reconnected or severed the lines, though. In fact, since the two Koreas established their first hotline in 1971, North Korea has cut communications on multiple occasionsto punish the South for