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MUNSAN STATION, South Korea : Trains from North and South Korea crossed the heavily fortified border Thursday for the first time since the 1950-53 war, in what both sides described as a milestone for reconciliation.
One train from the capitalist South crossed the Military Demarcation Line at 12:17 pm (0317 GMT) in the west of the peninsula. A second train from the communist North traversed the border along the east coast minutes later.
"A new chapter for peace is opening in Korean history," the South's Unification Minister Lee Jae-Joung said just before the historic trips.
"This will be a turning point for overcoming the legacy of the Cold War era, tearing down the wall of division and opening a new era for peace and reunification."
His Northern counterpart Kwon Ho-Ung, in an apparent reference to the United States, said the peninsula's division had been "forced upon us by foreign forces."
He said both sides would strive "to ensure that the train for reunification driven by the North and South rushes forward along the track for peace and solidarity."
Relatives of people kidnapped by the North staged a small protest at Munsan Station north of Seoul, accusing the government of ignoring their plight.
But officials at the station would let nothing ruin the celebration as they saw the train off. Firecrackers exploded and crowds waves white and blue Korean "reunification" flags.
"The Iron Horse gallops again!" read one message.
The five-car train left Munsan for Kaesong in the North along a 27-kilometre (17-mile) stretch of track. The second train left Mount Kumgang Station in the North for the South's Jejin Station on a 25-kilometre track.
Each train carried 100 South Koreans and 50 North Koreans.
The northbound train slowed to a crawl as it neared a high fence topped with barbed wire at the edge of the four-kilometre-wide Demilitarised Zone which bisects the peninsula.
A gate was swung shut again after it passed and crossed the border in the middle of the zone.
The trips are only one-off test runs since the North refuses to give a longer-lasting security guarantee.
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.
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.
A planned test run last year was cancelled by the North at the last minute.
Relations soured further after the North's missile launches last July and nuclear test in October. But ties improved after the North agreed in principle at six-nation negotiations in February to scrap its atomic programmes.
On Tuesday Seoul 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 South Korean passenger on the trains had cost 2.1 billion won (2.2 million dollars).
Some analysts say the resumption of Seoul's aid could reduce Pyongyang's incentive to cooperate with the six-nation nuclear deal.
US ambassador Alexander Vershbow said Wednesday that Seoul and its allies should closely cooperate on inter-Korean reconciliation moves since the nuclear dispute had not yet been solved.
At Munsan, 20-30 relatives of abductees held a banner proclaiming, "The Inter-Korean railway is nothing more than a castle built on sand."
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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