Groundbreaking held for linking S-N railway

A ground-breaking ceremony for re-reconnecting the Seoul-Sinuiju Railway was held Monday at Imjinkak near the truce village of Panmunjeom with President Kim Dae-Jung and some 1,000 Korean and foreign dignitaries attending.

In his congratulatory address, President Kim said, ¡°We begin the task to re-link the severed artery of the nation and to unify the divided fatherland, adding that the occasion will mark the starting point forward toward the national reconciliation, cooperation and prosperity.¡±

Noting that the restoration of the Seoul-Sinuiju Railway will bring about an opportunity for both South and North Korea to take a great leap, the national economic development will be expanded to the whole Korean peninsula and usher in an ¡°era of the Korean peninsula¡± in which Korea becomes center of physical distribution in Northeast Asia and the central country of the world. The inter-Korean railway re-connection project, which will be undertaken for the first time after five decades of the national division, will be finished by the end of next September with the linking of 12 kilometers between Munsan of the South and Gaeseong of the North with a total cost of 54.7 billion won. In parallel with the railway linkage, the project to construct a 6 kilometers-long four-lane road will be started to connect the Unification Bridge with Jangdan Railway Station in the South.

Meanwhile, the North Korean side was scheduled to start the project to link the railroads between Jangdan Station and Bongdong Station in the North to re-connect the Seoul-Gaeseong Railway. But the North did not hold a groundbreaking ceremony for its part, failing simultaneous ceremonies between the two Koreas.