SOUTH KOREA and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) held a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday to modernize and eventually connect railways and roads across the inter-Korean border.

The ceremony was held at Panmun Station in the DPRK’s border town of Kaesong and  attended by some 100 participants from both sides, according to Seoul’s unification ministry.

The ceremony started at around 10 a.m. local time as scheduled with a musical performance by a DPRK brass band.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and DPRK top leader Kim Jong Un agreed at their Pyongyang summit in September to hold the groundbreaking ceremony before the end of this year.

Moon and Kim agreed at their first summit in April to modernize and eventually connect railways and roads along the eastern and western Korean Peninsula.

Kim Yun Hyok, the DPRK railway minister, said in a congratulatory speech that the ceremony was held at a historical moment when the peninsula was at a historical turning point and the desire for peace and prosperity was stronger than ever.

He said the ceremony would become an opportunity to actively push for the balanced development between the two Koreas and co-prosperity in Northeast Asia and the entire world, according to a pool report from South Korean journalists provided by Seoul’s unification ministry.

South Korean Transport Minister Kim Hyun-mee said the two Koreas took a step forward for peace and prosperity on the peninsula as the railway and road connection across the border would have a meaning beyond physical connection.

She said the connection would facilitate exchanges across the border and widen inter-Korean economic cooperation, benefits from which would be shared by the two Koreas, noting that increased exchanges and cooperation would further consolidate peace on the peninsula.

Following the speeches, the South Korean transport minister and the DPRK railway minister had a signing event on the concrete sleeper that could be used for rails in future construction work.

About 10 officials of the two sides linked meters of track as a celebratory function, followed by the disclosure of a signpost that reads Seoul on the left side and Pyongyang on the right.

Among other South Korean invitees were five civilians, who have families in the DPRK separated by the 1950-1953 Korean War, and the last locomotive engineer who drove the train between Kaesong and Munsan, a South Korean city just south of the border with the DPRK, for about one year until December 2008.

South Korea’s cargo trains operated five times a week for about one year through the section of the Gyeongui Line from Kaesong to Munsan, but the operation stopped in December 2008 as inter-Korean relations began to sour.

Kim Kum-ok, a South Korean woman whose birthplace is Kaesong, said on the train for Panmun Station that she rejoiced and was glad at her trip to Kaesong where the 86-year-old spent her early years.

The  ceremony ended with the performance by the DPRK brass band.

The South Korean participants had lunch in Kaesong and returned by train to Seoul yesterday afternoon.

(Xinhua)