North Korea and South Korea made little progress Tuesday in working out security arrangements for test runs of trains across their heavily armed border in their first day of high-level military talks, a South Korean official said.
The two Koreas agreed during economic talks last month to conduct the test runs on May 17 on rebuilt rail tracks across their border, but the tests cannot occur unless North Korean military agrees to security arrangements.
If the rail tests go forward, it would be the first time trains would cross the border in more than a half century.
Last year, the North called off a planned test run at the last minute after the South rebuffed its demand for their contended sea border to be redrawn.
In Tuesday's talks at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea stressed the need for security arrangements for the rail test, but the North instead made another proposal, Colonel Moon Sung-mook said. He did not elaborate on the proposal, but pool reports said the North wanted to broaden the discussions to security guarantees for all joint Korean cooperation projects a step likely to prevent agreement on arrangements for the test runs scheduled next week.
The North also raised other unrelated issues, including its western sea border with the South, casting a greater shadow over plans for the test runs.
The North's chief delegate, Lieutenant General Kim Yong-chol, called for joint fishing zones along the maritime border and ways to avoid accidental naval clashes there, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported.
KCNA mentioned nothing about security arrangements for the train test runs.
(China Daily via agencies May 9, 2007)
