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N Korea proposes cutback in cross-border rail service

North Korea has proposed a cutback in a cross-border railway freight service launched with much fanfare last month, citing a lack of cargo, a South Korean military official said yesterday.

The first regular service for half a century across the heavily fortified frontier began on Dec. 11, with trains carrying goods and raw materials to and from a Seoul-funded industrial precinct at Kaesong just north of the border.

However, the service, which operates five days a week, has been carrying little cargo because factory owners find it more convenient to use truck traffic.

At military talks on Friday the North Koreans proposed reducing the frequency, according to the unidentified South Korean official quoted by Yonhap news agency.

"It is better to reduce the runs than keep the service going without cargo," Colonel Pak Rim-su, head of the North's delegation, was quoted as saying.

The South rejected the proposal but offered to bring it up at a separate inter-Korean panel on railway cooperation, the official said.

Officials from both sides had hailed the start of the railway service as a landmark in reconciliation moves between two countries which remain technically at war following their 1950 to 1953 conflict.

But on some days last month the train was running empty, South Korean state railway officials said at the time.

The officials said it would be continued because of its symbolic significance.
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