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