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MUNSAN STATION, South Korea - North and South Korea were set Thursday to send the first trains across their heavily fortified border since the 1950-53 war, an event hailed by the South as a milestone for reconciliation.
"This is a very special day. The opening of inter-Korean railways will mean the opening of peace and the opening of the economy," said a spokesman for President Roh Moo-Hyun.
Relatives of people kidnapped by the North staged a small protest at Munsan Station north of the capital, complaining that Seoul was ignoring their plight.
But officials at the rail station were in celebratory mood as they waited to launch the service.
White and blue Korean "reunification" flags, used for joint appearances at sports events, adorned the building along with welcome banners.
A five-car train was to leave Munsan north of Seoul for Kaesong in the North along a 27-kilometre (17-mile) stretch of track near the west coast.
A second train will leave Mount Kumgang Station in the North for the South's Jejin Station on a 25-kilometre track along the east coast of the peninsula.
Each will carry 100 South Koreans and 50 North Koreans.
The two trains are set to cross the Military Demarcation Line marking the border, in the middle of the four-kilometre-wide Demilitarised Zone, between 12:10 pm (0310 GMT) and 12:20 pm.
The trips are only one-off test runs since the North has not responded to the South's requests for a regular service, but are seen as highly symbolic.
The project was agreed at a 2000 summit, the first and only one between two nations still technically at war.
Workers have spent years re-laying the track, with the South footing the bill for work in the North, and clearing minefields alongside the western line.
A test run was set for last year but then cancelled at the last minute, apparently due to objections from the North's powerful military.
The South wants a regular service to serve an inter-Korean industrial estate at Kaesong and a tourist resort at Mount Kumgang.
Cross-border roads alongside the railways opened in 2005.
Relations soured after the North's missile launches last July and its nuclear test in October, but improved after the North agreed in principle at six-nation negotiations in February to scrap its atomic programmes.
However Pyongyang missed an April deadline to begin fulfilling its pledges because of a continuing row over US-inspired financial sanctions.
On Tuesday, the South Korean government approved funding for the shipment of 400,000 tonnes of rice aid worth 170 million dollars to its neighbour, and of raw materials to produce consumer goods worth 80 million dollars.
The conservative JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, tallying the cost of aid and track-laying in the North, said the ticket of each of the 200 South Korean passengers on the two trains had cost 2.1 billion won (2.2 million dollars).
US ambassador Alexander Vershbow, after meeting Unification Minister Lee Jae-Joung on Wednesday, said Seoul and its allies should closely cooperate on inter-Korean reconciliation as the nuclear dispute had not yet been solved.
Some analysts say the resumption of Seoul's aid, theoretically tied to the North's progress on denuclearisation, could reduce Pyongyang's incentive to cooperate with the six-nation nuclear deal.
At Munsan, a group of 20-30 relatives of abductees held a banner proclaiming, "The Inter-Korean railway is nothing more than a castle built on sand."
The group leader tried to block access to a planned ceremony at the station by parking his jeep. He and some supporters scuffled with plainclothes police who brought a tow truck to move the vehicle.
Seoul says 485 of its citizens, including many fishermen, have been kidnapped by the North in the past half-century. The North says it holds no Southerners against their will. - AFP/ir
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