North Korea to reconnect military phone lines to Seoul

North Korea has told South Korea it will reconnect cross-border military phone lines that it had switched off in protest at a military exercise, officials said Friday. The lines were used to authorise crossings to and from a joint industrial estate north of the border. The frontier has been intermittently closed since they were switched off on March 9, the day the drill started.
A spokesman for Seouls unification ministry said the North had sent a message announcing that the lines would be reconnected at 8:00 am Saturday (2300 GMT Friday). "Our side, out of our position and determination to ensure militarily the implementation of the historic inter-Korean joint declaration, will restore the inter-Korean military communication lines," it quoted the message as saying. The US-South Korean military exercise, which the North described as a rehearsal for invasion, ended Friday.