North Korea says it is cutting a military hotline with South Korea, meaning that all direct inter-government and military contact has been suspended.
The North's official news agency quotes a senior military official as saying that in a situation where war may break out at any moment, there is no need to keep up North-South military communications.
Several weeks ago North Korea severed the Red Cross hotline used by the two governments to communicate in the absence of diplomatic relations, AFP reports.
The two Koreas use the military hotline to communicate as hundreds of workers travel back and forth to the Kaesong industrial complex.
