North Korea did not respond to daily routine calls with South Korea via an inter-Korean liaison communication channel for the seventh straight day Thursday, Seoul's unification ministry said.
The North's unresponsiveness came as the secretive regime fired an intermediate- or longer-range ballistic missile toward the East Sea earlier in the day, according to the South's military.
North Korea did not answer the 9 a.m. routine opening calls, extending its refusal to respond to cross-border regular contact into the seventh straight day, according to the ministry. Seoul's opening calls via the militaries' East and West sea communication lines also went unanswered.
The two Koreas typically hold two phone calls daily, at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., through the liaison communication line.
The latest suspension of communication came amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the wake of the North's weapons tests in protest of joint military drills between South Korea and the United States.
Unification Minister Kwon Young-se on Tuesday issued a rare statement expressing his "strong" regret over the North's "unilateral and irresponsible" move.
Source: Yonhap News Agency