N. Korea checks cross-border railways ahead of scheduled test: official

Yonhap
5/4/2007

North Korea Saturday examined its side of railways that run across the heavily-fortified inter-Korean border as the divided Koreas are set to test them on May 17, a Defense Ministry official said.

“As North Korea notified our side Friday, (its officials) inspected the tracks inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) early Saturday and returned,” the official said, adding a one-carriage North Korean train came to within a “few hundred meters” from the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) after departing from a station located some 2 kilometers north of the border and returned after the test run. The DMZ stretches two kilometers each to the north and south from the MDL.

The North told the South Friday that it will “check the tracks in the northern section” of a railroad connecting Seoul to the North’s northwestern city of Sinuiju for two hours from 10 a.m. Saturday.

The Seoul-Sinuiju railway was reconnected two years ago for the first time since the end of 1950-53 Korean War. Another railway connecting South Korea’s eastern Kangwon Province and North Korea’s Mount Geumgang is new.

The Koreas had agreed to conduct trial runs of passenger trains on the railways last year, but no train from either side has crossed the border amid opposition from the North Korean military, which fears possible exposure of its sensitive military installations along the tracks.

The sides have agreed to conduct a test run on the railways on May 17 following high-level military talks next week to discuss security guarantees and other issues related to the test.

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