North Korea on Wednesday said it was cutting a military hotline with South Korea amid increasing tensions and following the severance of another hotline this month, dpa reported.
"The north-south military communications will be cut off," a message from North Korea to the South was quoted as saying by the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency.
The communications "which were set up for dialogue and cooperation" had "already lost their significance" due to hostile actions from the United States and South Korea, the report said.
Later Wednesday, calls placed on the west coastal military hotline went unanswered, the South Korean Ministry of Unification was quoted as saying by the Yonhap News Agency in Seoul.
The line was established to coordinate traffic to and from the Kaesong industrial complex just north of the border, which is jointly run by the two countries. It was cut once before, in 2009.
Traffic was running normally Wednesday, Yonhap quoted a ministry official as saying, but pointed out that movements are planned three days in advance.
Another hotline between each side's Red Cross organization in the border village of Panmunjom was cut on March 11. That line was previously severed in 2008 and again in 2010.
Both telephone links were set up in 2006 to avoid accidental clashes.
Tensions are high on the peninsula after Pyongyang on February 12 conducted its third nuclear test, prompting the UN Security Council to tighten sanctions on it.
North Korea said earlier the cutting of the Panmunjom hotline was in response to the latest sanctions, and to military exercises by the US and South Korean militaries this month, which Pyongyang has accused of being a rehearsal for an invasion.