The South Korean officials and experts boarded the train to undertake an 18-day, 750-mile survey of railway tracks in North Korea.
As per South Korea’s plan to integrate the two Koreas economically, the country is planning to develop North Korea’s key infrastructural needs. Yet, unless sanctions are not lifted against North Korea, it will not come to life as expected. For this journey, permission from the UN had to be taken to carry equipment and fuel into the North despite the sanctions regime.
“The inter-Korean railway connection project is intended to overcome division and open a new future of the Korean Peninsula,” Minister of Unification Cho Myoung-gyon said at a ceremony at Dorasan Station near the border. “Through the one connected railway, the South and the North will prosper together and the ground for peace on the Korean Peninsula will be consolidated,” he added. “The train crossing the Korean Peninsula will carry peace and prosperity to northeast Asia and the world.”
The survey team will go across central North Korea and to the city of Sinuiju near the Chinese border, along the northwestern coast. In the second phase, it will pass near the Mount Kumgang tourist region and along the east coast up to a riverside station near the border with Russia. It will go into places not previously accessed by any foreigners before.
In November South Korea had marked more than USD 260 million, or 295.1 billion won, for the upgradation of railways and roads in North Korea. The South Korean President Moon Jae-in plans to connect South Korean transport networks with North Korea. Most of it is given freely, with a part given as a loan. “It is an estimate for now … we will continue efforts, including policy coordination with the US, to carry out the projects agreed between the two Koreas without a hitch,” said an official from South Korea’s Ministry of Unification in October.
