North Korea cuts military hotline as tensions rise

Reclusive North Korea is to cut the last channel of communications with its southern neighbour because war could break out at “any moment“, it said, days after warning the US and South Korea of a nuclear attack.

The move is the latest in a series of threats from North Korea in response to new UN sanctions imposed after its third nuclear test in February and to “hostile” military drills under way joining the US and South Korea.

The North has already stopped responding to calls on the hotline to the US military that supervises the heavily armed demilitarised zone and the Red Cross line that has been used by the governments of both sides.