N Korea, UN forces clear way for inter-Korea railway

The agreement was signed in the UN truce village of Panmunjom, the only meeting point between the old Cold War antagonists.

The armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War called for joint jurisdiction of the DMZ by the UNC and North Korea and this marks the first, albeit small, change in that truce.

The US-led United Nations Forces fought Chinese-backed North Korea in the war, which ended in an armed truce that has Left the two Korea’s technically still at war.

The United States maintains 37,000 troops in South Korea and leads military discussions with the North under the auspices of the United Nations Command.

Friday’s agreement clears the way for inter-Korean military talks to discuss repairing the railway and building a highway through a border bristling with artillery and tanks, strewn with landmines and where two million troops confront each other.

The railway is one of the most concrete signs yet of the dramatic thaw on the peninsula since leaders of the two Koreas met in Pyongyang in June for a landmark summit.

The two Koreas have no transportation or communication links. A two-lane road from the South stops at Panmunjom.

Thousands of soldiers from both Communist North and capitalist South are to be mobilised to clear landmines and build the road and railway, which would run 318 km (200 miles) from Seoul to Sinuiju, a city on North Korea’s border with China.

An estimated one million mines are planted in the DMZ, several thousand in the area where the road and railway are being built.

The schedule calls for removal of all the landmines in the southern part of the DMZ by March with construction of the railway and four-lane highway on the southern side completed by September at a cost of around 150 billion won ($130 million).

When completed, the railway will run the length of the Korean peninsula and talks are under way with Russia to link it up with the Trans-Siberian Railroad.