Bo-eun leads the digital content team. She has covered foreign affairs, North Korea, tech, economy and gender issues at The Korea Times. She did a short stint at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where she obtained a new perspective on news production and life. Small sources of joy for her are lounging in the sun, having a good latte and swimming.
Koreas hold working-level talks to reconnect roads
Officials of the two Koreas hold a meeting on a study on the roads of the South and North in the North's city of Gaeseong on Aug. 13. Yonhap
By Kim Bo-eun
By Kim Bo-eun
The two Koreas held a working-level meeting at the inter-Korean liaison office in Gaeseong, North Korea, Thursday, to reconnect roads across the border.
Three delegates from the South, led by a land ministry official, met with three North Koreans to exchange technical data on road connections.
They discussed plans to conduct a joint inspection of a section of a road in the North along the east coast.
This is part of a bigger project to modernize and connect roads and railways of the South and the North along the east and west coasts, which the Koreas agreed to at summits between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held last year.
Last August, the Koreas conducted a week-long joint inspection of a 170-kilometer section of road from Gaeseong to Pyongyang in North Korea.
However, they only carried out a simplified three-day examination of the 100-kilometer section from Goseong to Wonsan along the east coast, without equipment, in December.
This was to enable initial road inspections of the North to be completed before the Koreas held a ceremony on Dec. 26 marking the initiation of their railway and roads projects.
The Koreas have received an exemption from sanctions from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to enable equipment to enter the North for the inspections.
Inter-Korean projects are expected to gain traction this year after they were stalled for some time due to what was seen as the North's lack of progress in denuclearization. The Koreas also received exemptions on UNSC sanctions for joint excavations of 1950-53 Korean War remains in the demilitarized zone beginning in April.
The exemptions were approved after South Korea and the U.S. reached a consensus at a working group meeting discussing inter-Korean affairs and the North's denuclearization earlier this month.
However, it will take time until actual construction work for the railway and road projects can begin due to sanctions imposed on the North by the UNSC.
The stance of the U.S., which leads the sanctions regime on the North, is that sanctions will be eased when Pyongyang takes irreversible denuclearization measures.