A visitor carrying a South Korean flag uses binoculars to view the northern side at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, Tuesday, June 9, 2020. North Korea said Tuesday it will cut off all communication channels with South Korea as it escalates its pressure on the South for failing to stop activists from floating anti-Pyongyang leaflets across their tense border. AP

North Korea's decision to cut off all inter-Korean communication lines appears aimed at voicing its pent-up frustration over South Korea's failure of advancing inter-Korean relations and also intended to strengthen its bargaining power in cross-border issues, experts said Tuesday.

The latest hard-line move is also seen as efforts to close ranks and rally domestic support behind the Kim Jong-un regime through "South Korea bashing" as Pyongyang must be facing a double whammy of growing its anemic economy under the strain of global sanctions and the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, they said.

Earlier in the day, North Korea announced it will cut off all inter-Korean communications lines at noon Tuesday, including the hotline between the North's ruling Workers' Party and the South's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae.

The move comes days after North Korea vowed to abolish an inter-Korean liaison office in the North's border town of Kaesong and completely shut down other major cross-border programs, denouncing leaflet-sending from South Korea as a hostile act breaching a series of peace agreements between the two sides.

The North stressed the decisions will be the first in a series of steps against South Korea and that the "work towards the South should thoroughly turn into the one against enemy."

"The latest move appears to be in line with North Korea's strong and long-held displeasure with the stalemated inter-Korean relations and intended to strengthen domestic unity through South Korea bashing and rally support behind the Kim Jong-un regime," said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korean studies professor at Dongguk University in Seoul.

"The decision could have also reflected the growing fatigue brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and its current economic situations," he added. "For all of them, the North appears to have determined that it is necessary to do something to ramp up loyalty for the Kim Jong-un regime, and it used the leaflet issue as a chance to do that."

The North has been vehemently protesting propaganda leaflets since last week.

On Friday, the North's United Front Department handling inter-Korean affairs issued a statement, saying it will abolish the liaison office in the first in a series of measures that Kim Yo-jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong-un, threatened a day earlier to take unless Seoul stops the sending of such leaflets.

She also warned of dismantling a now-shuttered industrial park in Kaesong and scrapping a military tension reduction agreement signed in 2018, calling for a halt to all hostilities along the border.