SEOUL South Korea has proposed holding working-level talks on Thursday with the North Korean to discuss projects to relink railways and highways, the Defense Ministry said on Monday.
"We will send a letter to North Korea today asking to hold the working-level talks on Thursday this week since it would take time for us to have consultations with relevant government agencies," a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
North Korea had proposed the two sides met on Tuesday in the United Nations truce village of Panmunjom to discuss the projects involving transportation across the most heavily fortified border in the world. The North Korean proposals for talks had come one day after North Korea and the UN command signed on agreement at Panmunjom last week turning the administration of the southern part of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) -- a four-km (2.5 mile) wide swath of "no man's land" established at the end of the 1950-53 Korea War -- over to South Korea. The road and railway, which would run 318 km (200 miles) from Seoul to Sinuiju, a city on North Korea's border with China, are among 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.
South Korea's Brigadier General Kim Kyung-Duck was expected to attend the working-level talks along with six other officials from relevant offices, the spokesman said. The railroad project would run the length of the Korean peninsula and talks are under way with Russia to link it up with the trans-Siberian railroad.
The two Koreas have no transportation or communication links.