S. Korea, DPRK hold groundbreaking ceremony for rail, road connection across border

South Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday held a groundbreaking ceremony to modernize and eventually connect railways and roads across the inter-Korean border.

The ceremony was held at Panmun Station in the DPRK’s border town of Kaesong, attended by some 100 participants from both sides, according to Seoul’s unification ministry.

The ceremony started at around 10:00 a.m. local time as scheduled with the music performance by a DPRK brass band.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and DPRK top leader Kim Jong Un agreed at their Pyongyang summit in September to hold the groundbreaking ceremony before the end of this year.

Moon and Kim agreed at their first summit in April to modernize and eventually connect railways and roads along the eastern and western Korean Peninsula.

Kim Yun Hyok, the DPRK railway minister, said in a congratulatory speech that the ceremony was held at a historical moment when the peninsula was into a historical turning point and the desire for peace and prosperity got stronger than ever.

He said the ceremony would become an opportunity to actively push for a balanced development between the two Koreas and a co-prosperity in Northeast Asia and the entire world, according to a pool report from South Korean journalists provided by Seoul’s unification ministry.

South Korean Transport Minister Kim Hyun-mee said the two Koreas took a step forward for peace and prosperity on the peninsula as the railway and road connection across the border would have a meaning of physical connection beyond.

She said the connection would facilitate exchanges across the border and widen inter-Korean economic cooperation, benefits from which would be shared by the two Koreas, noting that increased exchanges and cooperation would consolidate peace on the peninsula further.

From the DPRK side, Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, and four other high-level officials participated in the event.

Attendees from the South Korean side included Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, Lee Hae-chan, chief of the ruling Democratic Party, and other parliamentary leaders.

Following the speeches, the South Korean transport minister and the DPRK railway minister had a signing event on the concrete sleeper that could be used for rails in future construction works.

About 10 officials of the two sides linked meters of track as a celebratory function, followed by the disclosure of a signpost that reads Seoul on the left side and Pyongyang on the right.

Among other South Korean invitees were five civilians, who have families in the DPRK separated by the 1950-1953 Korean War, and the last locomotive engineer who drove the train between Kaesong and Munsan, a South Korean city just south of the border with the DPRK, for about one year until December 2008.

South Korea’s cargo trains operated five times a week for about one year through the section of the Gyeongui Line from Kaesong to Munsan, but the operation stopped since December 2008 as inter-Korean relations began to sour.

Foreign dignitaries also joined the ceremony, including Armida Alisjahbana, executive secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and senior railway and road officials from neighboring countries.

Kim Kum-ok, a South Korean separated family whose birthplace is Kaesong, said in the train for the Panmun Station that she rejoiced and was glad at her trip to Kaesong where the 86-year-old spent her early years, according to the pool report.

Describing the trip as a dream, Kim said the train trip to her hometown had been a big hope to her.

The groundbreaking ceremony ended with the performance by the DPRK brass band. The South Korean participants had lunch in Kaesong and returned by train to Seoul Station in the capital Seoul Wednesday afternoon.