SEOUL, Dec. 24 (UPI) — North and South Korea will hold a ceremony Wednesday for the launch of a project that will reconnect railways and roads, Seoul’s unification ministry said Monday.
The ceremony will take place at Panmun station in the North Korean city of Kaesong. More than 100 participants are expected to attend the groundbreaking ceremony, held after a month-long primary inspection to examine North Korean train tracks, according to the ministry.
Participants will include North and South Korean government officials and lawmakers, as well as foreign delegations, such as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) Armida Alisjahbana and transportation and land ministers from Russia, Mongolia and China.
For a month, North and South Korean officials had traveled some 497 miles from Mount Kumkang to Tumen River along the east coast and 250 miles of railroads of Gyeongui Line on the west coast, to survey North Korean railroad and road conditions.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un earlier agreed to reconnect disjointed railways and roads at a summit.
“The ceremony is another step for cooperation between the North and South in reconnecting railways and roads,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ceremony, however, remains symbolic, and actual construction hinges on plans for sanctions against North Korea.
“We will conduct actual construction while watching how steps for denuclearization proceed and situations regarding North Korean sanctions change,” the ministry said.
The inter-Korean railway project has been subject to debates on whether it breaches international sanctions as it involves transportation of equipment and materials that the United Nations and the United States forbid.
The U.N. Security Council exempted the railway survey from sanctions last month, and North and South Korean officials went ahead with their plan to examine railroad conditions in North Korea to draw up plans for construction to connect railways between North and South.
