The North Korean government has said it will cut all communication lines with the South Korean government in response to the South allowing defectors to send leaflets with balloons across the border.
From 2018 until now the two Korean governments have been making daily calls to each other to try to reduce tensions through a special liaison office located in Kaesong, a border town on the North Korean side.
North Korea has also said it will cut military communication channels.
The South said on Monday that for the first time in 21 months its call to North Korea had been unanswered.
Some experts on North Korea suggest that these moves by Pyongyang could be part of a broader strategy to extort money and gain concessions from the South Korean, Japanese and American governments: a strategy North Korea regularly employs.
This move is the latest blow to the thawing of relations that the Trump administration has pursued since US President Trump met with North Korea’s leadership in 2018.