SINGAPORE -- Singapore doctors successfully separated on Tuesday two South Korean baby girls joined at the spine, barely two weeks after conjoined Iranian sisters died in an attempt to part them, attracting world attention.

"The Korean twins have been successfully separated at 2:40 p.m. this afternoon," Reuters quoted Raffles Hospital spokesman, Dr Prem Kumar Nair, as telling a news conference.

"The parents are with the twins and they are very happy," Nair said, adding that the babies were in stable condition and would remain in intensive care for 48 to 72 hours.

The sisters, Ji Hye and Sa Rang, underwent the surgery lasting about five hours at Raffles Hospital, which is still dogged by controversy after an unprecedented and high-risk operation to separate the adult Iranian twins failed on July 8.

The surgical team for the latest operation, estimated to cost $28,500, was led by Dr Yang Ching Yu, deputy medical director of Raffles Hospital and consultant neurosurgeon Dr Keith Goh, who headed the failed surgery on the Iranian twins.

The Korean babies are joined at their lower backs and at an angle where neither can sit nor stand properly when they get older. The most delicate part of the surgery was to separate internal organs that were fused around the anal region.

"The girls have to be separated at this stage because if we wait any longer, they may develop severe skull and spinal deformities. Without separation, they will never walk normally again," Dr Yang said in a statement. ---Smooth Operation--- Dr Joan Thong Pao-Wen, Raffles' consultant obstetrician and gynecologist who was on the medical team, said: "Everything went smooth, everything went so beautifully."

The parents of the Korean babies were determined to proceed after doctors gave the twins a better than 85 percent chance of survival. They were also encouraged by the Iranian twins, Ladan and Laleh Bijani, whom they met in Singapore before the ill-fated surgery.

"The Singapore medical team said the viability of their survival was over 85 percent," the twins' father, Min Seung-joon, told the ***Korean Times*** newspaper. "The Bijani sisters encouraged us and our babies... we cried when we heard the news."

The Iranian sisters, who were fused at the head, sacrificed their lives for a slim chance of realizing their dreams of pursuing separate lives and careers.

They were separated but died 90 minutes apart from a severe loss of blood following a marathon 52-hour surgery.

The successful operation for the Korean babies, whose names mean Wisdom and Love, was greeted with relief by Hanie Hassan, a sales executive, who clapped upon hearing the news as she waited in the hospital lobby. "I was too scared to follow the outcome after what happened to the Iranian twins. I just wanted it to turn out well."

The results of a coroner's inquiry into the deaths of the Iranian sisters are still pending, but that issue is separate from the Korean twins' surgery, a Raffles Hospital spokeswoman said.

She said the authorities would take several weeks to complete their interviews with friends, relatives and hospital staff to conclude if the Iranian twins understood the high risks.

The parents of the Korean babies had sought Goh's help after hearing of his success in separating the fused skulls and brains of 11-month-old Nepali sisters in 2001.

"The situation with the Korean twins is definitely less complicated," a medical source involved in the surgery to separate the Bijani twins told Reuters.

The Iranian sisters had searched the world for doctors willing to separate them and stated clearly they understood the risks. But the deaths sparked a heated debate on the ethics of such a life-threatening operation.