SEOUL, May 4 (UPI) -- North and South Korea are seeking to reduce tension on their heavily armed border and top military officers from both countries plan to work towards that end.
South Korea has accepted the communist North's proposal to hold high-level military talks next Tuesday through Thursday to discuss how to guarantee the safe passage of trains across the border, Seoul defense officials said Friday.
The talks are scheduled be held at the truce village of Panmunjom, inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, they said. The meeting would be the first talks between ranking generals in nearly a year amid the standoff over the North's nuclear program.
"The two sides will discuss the issue of militarily guaranteeing the cross-border operation of railways and roads, including the test runs of the inter-Korean railways," Army Col. Moon Sung-mook, head of the South Korean Defense Ministry's North Korea policy team, told reporters.
The plan to connect the railways across the border is a flagship project being pushed by the South to promote peace and reconciliation on the divided Korean peninsula that has remained technically in a state of war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended without a peace treaty.
