Koreas to launch train service

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Nov 16, 2007 by Jae-Soon Chang Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea -- North and South Korea agreed early today to launch cross-border rail service for the first time in more than half a century, the latest sign of improving relations between the two sides.

The rail's Dec. 11 opening will also mark one of the first tangible results of a summit last month between South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang.

The service, which will be limited to freight transport, will have trains running along a 16-mile track across the heavily armed frontier to a joint industrial complex in the North's city of Kaesong.

Today's agreement, reached after the first talks between the countries' prime ministers since 1992, also calls for the South to start building shipyards in North Korea and repairing a major highway and a railroad in the impoverished country next year.

The two sides will also start setting up a joint fishing area around their disputed western sea border next year as part of efforts to prevent naval clashes around an area that saw deadly skirmishes in 1999 and 2000.

"This agreement demonstrates both sides' commitment to carry out the summit declaration," South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae- joung said at the end of the three days of talks in Seoul.

The railway opening is part of measures to give new impetus to the joint venture industrial park, where about two dozen South Korean companies run factories employing some 20,000 North Koreans.

The North also agreed Friday to allow South Koreans to use the Internet and mobile phones inside the Kaesong area.

Internet use in North Korea is normally limited to elite officials, part of the regime's policies to prevent normal citizens from receiving any information beyond the steady diet of nationalist propaganda that dominates state-controlled media.

Visitors to North Korea are also required to hand over foreign mobile phones upon entry, which are returned to them when they leave.

South Korea hopes the inter-Korean railway will ultimately be linked to Russia's Trans-Siberian railroad and allow an overland route connecting the peninsula to Europe -- significantly cutting delivery times for freight that now requires sea transport.

Other points of Friday's agreement include promoting cooperation in the farming, resources development and medical sectors, as well as more reunions of families separated between North and South.

The high-level talks come amid progress in international efforts to rid North Korea of its nuclear programs, with Pyongyang recently beginning to disable its sole operational nuclear reactor under a deal with the U.S., South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.