Unification hopes as Korean trains cross border

TRAINS from North and South Korea crossed the heavily armed border yesterday, restoring for the first time an artery severed in the 1950-1953 fratricidal war and fanning dreams of unification.

“Today the heart of the Korean peninsula will start beating again,” South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said before the crossing. “The trains represent the dreams, the hopes and the future of the two Koreas.”

It took the countries 56 years to send the trains — one starting in the south and one in The trains carried 100 South Koreans and 50 North Koreans — including celebrities, politicians and a South Korean conductor from one of the last trains to cross before the rail link was cut in 1951.

The train from the South was seen off to fireworks, traditional drumming and hundreds of people waving flags showing a unified Korean peninsula in blue on a white background.

“I wish I could operate this train,” said Han Chun-ki, 80, the conductor who made one of the last cross-border runs some 50 years ago. “I never thought this day would come.”

North Korea’s military, fearful of increased openings between the isolated country and the outside world, cancelled a planned run a year ago. It agreed last week to a one-off run, despite pressure from Seoul for more crossings.

The two Koreas, still technically at war as their conflict ended only in a truce, have lived with a razor wire and land-mine strewn border dividing the peninsula for decades and with more than a million troops stationed near the countries’ demilitarised buffer zone.

To entice the North to allow the crossing, South Korea has offered some $80 million (€59.3m) in aid for its light industries.

Eventually, South Korea, which only shares a border with the North, said it wants to send passengers and cargo via its neighbour into China and Russia and link with the Trans-Siberian railway.