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IHT reported yesterday about this surprising development...

 

North Korea calls off cross-border train runs

 

North Korea on Wednesday abruptly canceled highly symbolic test runs of trains across its heavily armed border with South Korea, embarrassing the South Korean authorities who had billed them as a milestone in reconciliation with the North.

North Korea cited an atmosphere of confrontation and war in halting the test runs scheduled for Thursday. The cancellation came amid indications, including increased activities at a launching site for long-range missiles in the North, that the Communist regime was escalating tension in the stalled international talks on its nuclear weapons program. The two test runs on small lengths of rail links between two border towns were laden with symbolism. The last train between the two Koreas ran during the 1950-53 Korean War. South Korea has tried to reconnect the railways as a landmark project in its efforts to ease half a century of hostilities on the divided peninsula, a policy the Seoul government has pursued despite skepticism among U.S. policy makers who favor a harder line on the North. South Korea, a major supplier of aid and trade for the isolated North, was not expected to change its policy on the North because of the cancellation of the test runs. But North Korea's latest move demonstrated the regime's unpredictability. "The government finds it very regrettable that the North unilaterally put off the test runs just a day before the event," said Deputy Unification Minister Shin Eon Sang of South Korea in a statement. "The responsibility for the collapse of scheduled trial runs lies in North Korea." North Korea told the South that it was canceling the test runs and criticized "pro-U.S. ultraright conservative forces" in the South for "pushing the situation in Korea to an extreme phase of confrontation and war." Nam Sung Wook, an analyst at Korea University in the South, said that North Korea was slamming a brake on recent attempts by the South to open up the Communist North. While Washington tightened its economic sanctions on North Korea, Seoul has pursued its reconciliation with the North, hoping that the U.S. pressure will make the North more willing to open up to the South for economic exchanges and political dialogue. "The North wants cooperation with the South as a key policy goal," Nam said. "But it wants to do it in its own pace. The latest move means that the North doesn't like the tempo the South is trying to set." Experts also said that North Korea saw any project of reconciliation with the South as an opportunity to win economic aid. In the latest project of relinking the rail lines, the North thinks it has not won enough economic rewards, they said. At high-level military talks between the Koreas last week, the two sides failed to agree on a military protocol for cross-border travel on reconnected rail and road links. The North Koreans instead insisted on discussing the redrawing of an inter-Korean sea border. But the South said then that it was not a problem and that the test runs would go ahead as planned on Thursday. Every day, abut 500 people travel a newly built cross-border road from the South to Kaesong, where South Korean companies make goods at factories using cheap North Korean labor and land. About 1,000 South Koreans daily visit North Korea's Diamond Mountain resort by using another road link. Work has already been completed on laying track to reconnect the two rail lines running parallel to the roads. South Korea hopes to use the rail link to carry goods in and out of the industrial park in Kaesong. It eventually hopes to connect the railway to China, Russia and Europe.

Former President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea is planning to travel to North Korea next month. He had hoped to go there by the train. But now that plan is in doubt.

 

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/24/news/korea.php

 

 

The semi official S. Korean newsagency Yonhap wrote this..

 

N. Korea calls off test runs on cross-border railways

 

North Korea, on Wednesday called off scheduled test runs of cross-border railways, citing political and military tension, an official at the Unification Ministry said.

The cancellation came one day before the Koreas were set to test the railways...

 

The full article here..

http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20060524/610000000020060524164636E2.html

 

Chosun Ilbo, Korea Times... wrote, of course, also about it..

 

JoongAng Ilbo wrote this..

Rail tests off, North informs Seoul abruptly

 

KCNA, DPRK, reported ... NOTHING