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This Sep. 24, 2018, file photo shows the inter-Korean liaison office in Gaeseong, North Korea, with the Korean unification flag hung on the exterior windows of the building. Joint Press Corps

North Korea did not answer a daily liaison phone call from South Korea on Monday for the first time since the opening of a joint liaison office in 2018, the unification ministry said, after Pyongyang vowed to abolish the office in anger over anti-Pyongyang leaflets from the South.

The lack of response deepened concerns that the North might be carrying out its threat to scrap the liaison office in protest of propaganda leaflets that defectors and other activists in the South fly across the border criticizing Pyongyang's leadership.

"This morning the liaison office attempted to call North Korea, but the North has not answered the call yet," the ministry's spokesperson Yoh Sang-key said at a regular press briefing. "This is the first time North Korea has not answered our calls."

"We will attempt to call again this afternoon as planned," he added.

Through the inter-Korean liaison office, the two Koreas have made two phone calls daily, at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., since its opening in September 2018 following a historic Panmunjom summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and President Moon Jae-in.