Two Koreas hold groundbreaking ceremony for joint railway and road project in N. Korea
- 5 years ago
South and North Korea held their groundbreaking ceremony in North Korea earlier today... marking the linking and modernizing of railways and roads between the two sides.
This comes eight months after the leaders of Seoul and Pyeongyang first agreed to work together on the project.
It wasn't exactly smooth sailing due to a lack of progress in the North Korea-U.S. nuclear negotiations,... but after many twists and turns,... the two Koreas did hold this groundbreaking ceremony before we say good-bye to 2018.
And for more on this.... our unification ministry correspondent Oh Jung-hee joins us live from Dorasan station, the northernmost train station in South Korea.
Jung-hee, give us the latest.
Ji-yoon.
I'm standing at Dorasan station, just 700 meters from the Demilitarized Zone.
If trains really do get to start traveling back and forth between the two Koreas, then Dorasan will be the last train station before you cross the border into the North.
By now, we are expecting that the groundbreaking ceremony has ended already.
It was scheduled to be a one-hour long ceremony at North Korea's Panmun station... with 100 participants each from South and North Korea.
From North Korea, Ri Son-gwon, the head of Pyeongyang's reunification committee was at the event, with senior North Korean officials from the economic cooperation committee and vice ministers of railway and land.
From the South, Seoul's transport and unification ministers -- Kim Hyun-mee and Cho Myoung-gyon -- attended... along with the leaders of South Korea's political parties and rail and road-related officials.
A few South Koreans who lived in the North before being displaced by war had been invited as well, along with the engineer who last ran trains across the border.
Let's have a listen to what they had to say this morning.
"I'm very excited and I think I'm very lucky. There are a lot of us who had to leave our hometown. It'd be great if all of us could go and visit our hometown by train. We're all old. It's our big wish to go there by train."
"It's been ten years since I last ran trains to the North via the Gyeongui rail line. Back then, I didn't have any special thoughts, but after it was all suspended and I retired, I've been thinking 'when will I ever get to go there again.' It's great that I get to visit there again."
And we're hearing that there were also participants at today's event who're from outside the Korean Peninsula.
Tell more about them.... and also could their presence possibly mean that this transport project could start right away?
Ji-yoon, to answer your first question...
Yes, top railway and road officials from Russia, China and Mongolia were at the groundbreaking ceremony today.
That -- as the inter-Korean railways could eventually be linked to railways cutting across these three countries... to join the trans-Eurasian rail network in the future.
Also, the Executive Secretary of the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific was there.
We're ass
This comes eight months after the leaders of Seoul and Pyeongyang first agreed to work together on the project.
It wasn't exactly smooth sailing due to a lack of progress in the North Korea-U.S. nuclear negotiations,... but after many twists and turns,... the two Koreas did hold this groundbreaking ceremony before we say good-bye to 2018.
And for more on this.... our unification ministry correspondent Oh Jung-hee joins us live from Dorasan station, the northernmost train station in South Korea.
Jung-hee, give us the latest.
Ji-yoon.
I'm standing at Dorasan station, just 700 meters from the Demilitarized Zone.
If trains really do get to start traveling back and forth between the two Koreas, then Dorasan will be the last train station before you cross the border into the North.
By now, we are expecting that the groundbreaking ceremony has ended already.
It was scheduled to be a one-hour long ceremony at North Korea's Panmun station... with 100 participants each from South and North Korea.
From North Korea, Ri Son-gwon, the head of Pyeongyang's reunification committee was at the event, with senior North Korean officials from the economic cooperation committee and vice ministers of railway and land.
From the South, Seoul's transport and unification ministers -- Kim Hyun-mee and Cho Myoung-gyon -- attended... along with the leaders of South Korea's political parties and rail and road-related officials.
A few South Koreans who lived in the North before being displaced by war had been invited as well, along with the engineer who last ran trains across the border.
Let's have a listen to what they had to say this morning.
"I'm very excited and I think I'm very lucky. There are a lot of us who had to leave our hometown. It'd be great if all of us could go and visit our hometown by train. We're all old. It's our big wish to go there by train."
"It's been ten years since I last ran trains to the North via the Gyeongui rail line. Back then, I didn't have any special thoughts, but after it was all suspended and I retired, I've been thinking 'when will I ever get to go there again.' It's great that I get to visit there again."
And we're hearing that there were also participants at today's event who're from outside the Korean Peninsula.
Tell more about them.... and also could their presence possibly mean that this transport project could start right away?
Ji-yoon, to answer your first question...
Yes, top railway and road officials from Russia, China and Mongolia were at the groundbreaking ceremony today.
That -- as the inter-Korean railways could eventually be linked to railways cutting across these three countries... to join the trans-Eurasian rail network in the future.
Also, the Executive Secretary of the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific was there.
We're ass