North Korea cuts off military hotline with South

Cutting off the hotline is the latest move by the North
as it’s ramped up its rhetoric against South Korea and the United States.
Pyongyang had threatened to attack the U.S. with a nuclear weapon and said the
armistice agreement with the South is no longer valid. On Monday, North Korea
said it had put its forces on “full alert.”

{mosads}The declarations have been made in response to new sanctions against North Korea for conducting its third nuclear test. 

In response to the threats, U.S. forces have flown B-52 heavy bombers in
the skies above South Korea as part of military training exercises, planes that
are capable of carrying nuclear and non-nuclear weapons. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel also has ordered the Pentagon to add 14 ground-based missile interceptors in Alaska. 

The military hotline that North Korea cut off on Wednesday
is used primarily to coordinate operations at an industrial complex that’s
jointly operated in Kaesong, a North Korean border town.

The move had not affected movement of people or vehicles on
Wednesday, however, according to South Korea’s Yonhap. The North Koreans had
also cut off communication on the hotline in 2009 and operations in Kaesong had
continued.