ROK sends officials to DPRK to prepare for a joint ceremony

Seoul sent a delegation team to the DPRK on Monday, in preparations for a groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday to connect railways and roads across the border between the two neighbors.

According to the Republic of Korea's unification ministry, an advance team composed of 31 officials from the unification and transport ministries left on Monday morning for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's border town of Kaesong, where the ceremony will be held. Among them, 27 officials would stay there for the ceremony preparations.

Following their first summit in April at the border village of Panmunjom, ROK President Moon Jaein and the DPRK top leader Kim Jong-un agreed to modernize and eventually re-connect railways and roads along the western and eastern Korean Peninsula. Moon and Kim agreed during their third summit in September that the groundbreaking ceremony would be held before the end of this year.

The ceremony is expected to be attended by about 100 guests. Yonhap news agency reported that Armida Alisjahbana, executive secretary of the United Nations' Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, will join the event, along with top railway and road officials from China, Russia and Mongolia.

"The ceremony is meaningful in that it demonstrates the two neighbors' willingness to actively cooperate on the modernization and connection project of their railways and roads going forward," said Baik Tae-hyun, ROK's unification ministry spokesman.

In addition, the ceremony would only be a symbolic function, not an actual launch of the construction works, as international sanctions on the DPRK still ban such cooperation between the two neighbors.

"The actual construction will be pursued in line with situations related to the Pyongyang's denuclearization and global sanctions against the DPRK," the ROK spokesman added.

A report said the ceremony itself is not banned by the sanctions, but bringing equipment and materials to Kaesong is subject to the international restrictions. For the ceremony, the ROK drew support from the United States through last week's working-group meeting in Seoul, alleviating worry about the violation of sanctions.

Seoul allegedly set aside about 700 million won ($620,000) for the event to cover costs for building a stage and an audio system at the venue and transporting participants to the Panmun Station.

Wang Peng, a researcher of the Charhar Institute, said improving interconnectivity between the two neighbors will certainly have a positive impact on the region.

He said that people living on the Korean Peninsula will be the principal beneficiaries of the project, but considering the existing sanctions and the stalled denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington, Wang said it is anticipated that the two neighbors would encounter many concrete difficulties when implementing the project in the future.

Xinhua contributed to this story.