N. Korea not answering Panmunjom communication line

North Korea on Wednesday failed to answer a call made by the South on the communication line that runs through the truce village of Panmunjom, a day after high-level government talks were called off.

The Ministry of Unification said Seoul placed a call at 9 a.m., but the North did not pick up the phone.

"The latest move is probably linked to the cancellation of talks late Tuesday, although there is a need to wait-and-see how the situation unfolds," said a ministry source, who declined to be identified.

Since Seoul plans to call the North again in the afternoon, it is too early to say if the North has again "severed" the key communication link, he said.

The talks, which might have led to the easing of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, were suspended in the eleventh hour due to disagreements over the selection of chief delegates by the two sides.

The two Koreas exchanged the list of their five-member delegates to represent each other at the talks, but the North complained that South's chief negotiator, Vice Unification Minister Kim Nam-shik was a "low level" official unfit to lead the talks.

Demanding Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae represent the South Korean delegation, Pyongyang warned it would pull out of the talks set for Wednesday and Thursday if the South failed to comply.

Seoul had wanted Kim Yang-gon, head of the United Front Department in the North's ruling Workers' Party, to represent the North, and countered that the relatively little known Kang Ji-yong that the North tapped as the chief negotiator was not of the same stature as its minister.

The lack of response to calls placed by the South, meanwhile, comes after the North re-established the Red Cross liaison channel on Friday, a day after it proposed working level government-to-government talks.

The North unilaterally cut the communication link made up of one phone and one fax line on March 11, citing provocations by the South that was conducting military drills with the United States at the time.

In the past, the two sides have made contact twice each day at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., although calls can be placed at any time if the situation requires. (Yonhap News)