Our top story this morning South and North Korea are set to hold their groundbreaking
ceremony in North Korea for linking and
modernizing railways and roads between the two Koreas this comes eight months after the leaders of Seoul and Pyongyang first
agreed to work together on the project it wasn't exactly smooth sailing due to a lack of progress in the
North Korea us negotiations but after many twists and turns
South and North Korea are indeed you to hold this groundbreaking ceremony before we bid farewell to
2018 we have our Unification Ministry correspondent song he joining us live from dorasan station
Which is the northernmost train station in South Korea jeonggi good morning
Good morning mark I'm standing at for asan station just
700 meters away from the Demilitarized Zone
if trees really do get to travel back and forth between South and North Korea then this will be the last station before
you cross the border into the north
earlier this morning the South Koreans attending today's groundbreaking
Ceremony passed through this station and are expected to have arrived at the North Penman station an hour ago that's
Exactly where today's groundbreaking ceremony will take place from 10:00 a.m
just about now there are 100 participants each from South and North Korea from North Korea Lee seung-hwan the head of Pyongyang's
Reunification committee is to be at the event with senior North Korean officials from the Economic Cooperation
Committee in vice ministers of railway in land from the south Seoul's Transport and unification
ministers Kim Hyung Mian - myung-hoon are attending along with the leaders of South Korea's political parties and rail and road related officials a
few South Koreans who lived in the north before being displaced by war have been invited as well
Along with the engineer who who last ran trains across the border let's have a listen to what they had to say this morning
I'm very excited and I think I'm very lucky
There are a lot of us who had to live our hometown it'd be great if all of us could go and visit our hometown
By train, we're all old is our big wish to go there by train
It's been 10 years since I last rent range to the north via Kong a rail line
Back then I didn't have any special thoughts but after it was all suspended and I retired
I've been thinking when will I ever get to go there again it's great that I get to visit there again
Okay, well Jonny they must be extremely excited to be making this trip we're hearing though that there are also
Participants at today's event who are not from the Korean Peninsula can you tell us?
about
who they are and also
does their presence mean that this massive transport project could actually begin right away
Well mark to answer your first question
guests top railway and road officials from
China Russia and Mongolia will be at the groundbreaking ceremony today and that as
inter-korean railways could eventually be linked to railways cutting across these three countries to join the
Translation rail network in the future
also the executive secretary of the UN's
Economic and social commission for Asia and the Pacific is coming for assuming her presence is because of a project called the Asian highway
Network for a un escape and countries in Asia and Europe aim to connect highways that cross the continent and reach Europe a couple
Of proposed routes pass through the two Koreas but even if we have caught a number of high-level figures coming to the events today's groundbreaking
Ceremony doesn't mean that the two Koreas will kick-start related construction right away the two Koreas have
received sanctions waivers from the UN Security Council for on-site
Surveys and today's ceremony but that doesn't mean these waivers will apply to whatever work happens in the future
Seoul also plans to do more detailed surveys before coming up with
construction
Plans South Korea says the actual construction work won't begin yet and things will go in accordance with progress on North Korea's denuclearization
And following waivers on sanctions back to you mark