North Korea is ignoring calls from South Korea across multiple hotlines, Seoul announced Monday, in what the unification ministry suggested was an intentional move to block any cross-border communication for the first time in more than a year.

The DPRK has not responded to the twice-daily calls since last Friday, according to Seoul’s unification and defense ministries. The unification ministry explained that this is the first time the hotline calls went unanswered for consecutive days since they were reconnected in Oct. 2021.

Pyongyang stopped responding after South Korea last Thursdayattempted to use one of the hotlines to tell the