DPRK, SK hold talks on linking railways

SOUTH Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea held talks yesterday on connecting the railways that run across their border, a physical link that would transform the relationship between the two sides of the Korean Peninsula.

The discussions, the first on the issue for 10 years, took place in the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone.

After the talks, the two Koreas announced in a joint statement that Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to form a joint team to conduct research on connecting and modernizing railways over the border.

The joint team will launch an on-spot investigation on July 24 into the DPRK railway along the western corridor.

After that, the team will conduct a study on DPRK railway along the eastern corridor at an earliest possible date.

Meanwhile, research work on railways linking the South Korean and the DPRK railways will be carried out first along the western corridor in mid-July, then along the eastern corridor.

The two sides agreed to jointly come up with concrete measures, such as construction and designing, to modernize and connect railways at a high level.

More details will be discussed through the exchange of letters using the Panmunjom communications channel.

The joint railway project between the two Koreas is aimed to implement the Panmunjom Declaration, which South Korean President Moon Jae-in and DPRK leader Kim Jong Un signed after their first summit meeting on April 27 at Panmunjom.

Other working-level talks about road and forest cooperation are scheduled to be held later this week and early next week, respectively, to implement the Panmunjom Declaration.

A rail line already exists from Seoul to Pyongyang and on to Sinuiju on the Chinese border. Linking the railway systems — and modernizing the DPRK’s aging rail infrastructure — would give trade-dependent South Korea a land route to the markets abroad.

But doing so would represent a fundamental change on the peninsula: there has been no direct civilian communication between the two Koreas since 1953.