WASHINGTON -- The United States supports dialogue between South Korea and North Korea, a senior White House official said Tuesday, welcoming the reopening of direct communication lines between the divided Koreas.

"We are supportive of the dialogue and communication with North Korea," Kurt Campbell, policy coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, told reporters after taking part in a breakfast meeting in Washington hosted by the Korea-US Alliance Foundation.

His remarks come after North Korea reopened its direct communication lines, including a military hotline, with South Korea on Tuesday (Seoul time), about 13 months after it had unilaterally severed them in protest against anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets flown in from the South.

Many believe a resumption of inter-Korean dialogue may help foster communications between the United States and North Korea.

Pyongyang has stayed away from denuclearization negotiations with the US since early 2019, also remaining unresponsive to a series of overtures made by the Joe Biden administration since the new US president took office early this year.

The North's state-run Korean Central News Agency said the reopening of the inter-Korean communication lines will play a positive role "on the improvement and development" of inter-Korean relations.

"Now, the whole Korean nation desires to see the North-South relations recovered from setback and stagnation as early as possible," it said.

The North has also noted that the top leaders of the two Koreas -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un -- had made "several exchanges of personal letters" in recent days that led up to the restoration of the countries' direct communication lines. (Yonhap)