North Korea is willing in principle to start regular cross-border rail services with South Korea, Seoul's unification minister said yesterday amid criticism that a one-off link-up will lead nowhere.
The two nations on Thursday carried out landmark test runs on two lines across their heavily fortified border for the first time since the Korean War of 1950 to 1953.
The journeys prompted celebratory scenes in the South and were hailed as a milestone for reunification. But they cannot be repeated until the North's powerful military extends its one-off guarantee of safe passage across the world's last Cold War frontier.
"The North has shared the view with us that the test runs should lead to the opening of cross-border rail service," Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said on a local radio program.
Lee, quoted by Yonhap news agency, did not say when and how the two sides made the agreement. He said they will discuss the formal opening of the connected railways during ministerial talks from May 29 to May 31 in Seoul.
Analysts say the military is reluctant to open up railways as it depends on them for transporting war materials.
The lines, especially the one that could link the two countries' capitals, pass sensitive areas once used as invasion routes.
"The North's military is concerned that the opening of railways may lead to the loosening of defense as railways are like lifelines for them," Professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies said.
"It [the security guarantee] will be resolved step by step, not by a single stroke," the unification minister said, adding that it would be raised when top-level military talks resume in July.
Lee Churl, head of the state Korea Railroad Corporation, said on Thursday he planned to meet his North Korean and Russian counterparts in Pyongyang as early as next month to discuss linking an inter-Korean railway to the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Even with security guarantees, such a project would need massive investment in the North's crumbling rail network.
Before the test runs on short stretches of track, South Korea spent 545.4 billion won (US$586 million) on repairing railways and facilities on both sides of the border, the Korea Times estimated.
This week it agreed to provide the North with US$80 billion worth of light industrial goods and 400,000 tonnes of rice aid worth US$170 million.
"This, and North Korea's reluctance to go any further, forces one to rethink before dreaming of fully re-linked inter-Korean railways, much less its connection to Trans-Siberian Railway," the Times said in an editorial.
The conservative opposition Grand National Party urged the government to slow down on inter-Korean economic cooperation, to avoid jeopardizing international efforts to scrap North Korea's nuclear weapons.
"Given that no tangible progress has been made since the February 13 [disarmament] agreement, the railway test runs could work against the international community's coordinated peace efforts," the party said.
The JoongAng daily said the test runs came seven years after an initial agreement, at the first and only inter-Korean summit in 2000.
It said their significance may be tainted "if the government tries to puff up its symbolic meaning or to use it for its own political purposes."
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS