North Korea and South Korea on Friday re-opened a cross-border military hotline, paving the way for the re-opening of their shared Kaesong industrial complex, officials in Seoul said.
“The first test call was successfully made between the two Koreas this morning,” said an official at South Korea’s Unification Ministry.
The call was made after the two sides agreed on Thursday to restore the telephone and fax lines used for cross-border communications, which North Korea shut down on March 27.
Kaesong has been shuttered for the past 163 days amid heightened tensions on the peninsula.
The two Koreas agreed in August to work towards re-opening the Kaesong industrial complex, which hosted 123 South Korean factories and employed more than 53,000 North Korean labourers before Pyongyang closed it in April.