Koreas Will Reconnect Rail Line Severed During the War

In the first concrete sign of progress between North and South Korea since their historic summit last month, ministers from the two countries announced today an agreement to reconnect a railroad line that has been severed since the Korean War.

The railroad runs 318 miles from Seoul through the demilitarized zone to the port city of Sinuiju, near the Chinese border on North Korea’s west coast. But only a 12 1/2-mile section through the DMZ needs to be rebuilt for the railroad to function, connecting South Korea with North Korea and China, said Hong Song Kuk, director of economic and scientific affairs for the South Korean Ministry of Unification.

Details of the plan, including timing, cost and how the project would be financed, were not released today. But after South Korean President Kim Dae Jung’s return June 15 from the summit in the northern capital of Pyongyang, southern officials said that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had suggested assigning the 1.1-million-strong North Korean army to work on the railway project.

The railway was one item in a six-point statement released today after a three-day visit to Seoul by a ministerial-level North Korean delegation charged with implementing details of the basic reconciliation agreement reached by the two Kims in June.

The two sides also agreed to reopen a North-South liaison office in Panmunjom, the meeting point in the center of the DMZ. The office was shut down in 1996, leaving the two hostile governments with no institutionalized method of carrying out regular contact and meetings, said professor Choi Jang Jip, a political scientist at Korea University in Seoul.

Today’s statement also includes an agreement to resume ministerial-level talks Aug. 29-31 in Pyongyang.