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Rail links focus of fresh inter-Korea economic talks

Posted on: Sunday, 4 June 2006, 02:49 CDT

By Lee Jae-won

SOGWIPO, South Korea (Reuters) - South Korea urged the North on Saturday to reverse its decision to scrap test runs of trains across the heavily militarized border, officials said.

Economic officials from the two Koreas also discussed requests for Southern aid to help the North's poor industrial and mining sectors, but Seoul did not immediately agree while talks on the rail link continued, a South Korean official said.

North Korea called off the test runs just a day before they were to have taken place on May 25, triggering an exchange of harsh words. Each side blamed the other for scuttling the plan.

"We urged a prompt undertaking of test train runs and the opening of the railways," the South Korean official, Kim Chun-sik, told reporters after Sunday's first formal session on the southern resort island of Cheju.

South Korea expressed "strong regret" that the North had unilaterally put off the test runs, he said.

While Pyongyang initially blamed Seoul for cancellation of the plan, its representatives at the Cheju talks did not repeat the strong comments that had appeared in official media and did not appear to want to engage in fingerpointing, Kim said.

The train runs would have been a deeply symbolic step in generally warming ties between the two Koreas. The last train ran across the border 55 years ago during the Korean War, carrying wounded soldiers and refugees to the South.

South and North Korea remain technically at war because the 1953 truce that halted the conflict never gave way to a full peace treaty. Military tension remains high despite warming commercial and political ties in recent years.

The North Korean delegation arrived on Cheju on Saturday for the four days of meetings.

The talks follow remarks by South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who said Seoul was willing to make "many concessions" and give "unconditional assistance" to the North to speed up progress in ties with the communist neighbor.

On Saturday North Korea asked the South to build fertilizer plants in the North, the South Korean official said.

While North Korea has pursued a nuclear weapons program and says it has a missile stockpile, it cannot feed its 23 million people. Aid workers say it lacks resources to make fertilizer.

Seoul has been providing it with 300,000 to 350,000 tonnes of fertiliser each year on top of 400,000 to 500,000 tonnes of rice.

North Korea repeated a request, first made last year, for raw materials needed to make clothing and shoes and investment in its mining sectors, the official said.

For more than six months now, North Korea has boycotted six-country nuclear talks aimed at devising a massive aid package and improving diplomatic ties for the North in return for a promise to end its weapons programs.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul)

Source: REUTERS

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