Diplomatic tracks

As the flower-bedecked South Korean locomotive chugged out of the sparkling Dorasan Station into the low, green hills of the demilitarised zone (DMZ) last month, it sounded its horn triumphantly.

The echoes were euphoric. 'Peninsula's spine reconnected,' roared one South Korean daily after the May 17 event. 'Iron horse runs road to reunification,' headlined another. 'Korean peninsula's pulse flows again,' blared yet another.

The test runs of inter-Korean railways - the first since the Korean war - generated a storm in a South Korean media more used to reporting the apparently intractable nuclear standoff with Pyongyang. And it was not just trains. On May 21, a commercial shipping service began between the two nations for the first time in more than half a century.

Now that the excitement has cooled, questions are being raised about whether the events were merely a symbolic boost for Seoul's shaky engagement policy with the North, or a stepping stone to agreements that will, after half a century of division, grant South Korea access to the Asian landmass and generate momentum for deeper inter- Korean rapprochement.

Amid the tense military activity and stunning natural beauty of the DMZ, one of the most potent symbols of national division lies rusting: a railway locomotive, stranded forever between the two Koreas. Given this, the test run was emotional for many.

'I left Pyongyang when I was 13, losing my entire family,' said Song Yong-kil, 73, a pensioner who travelled from Seoul to Munsan Station, the northbound train's starting point. 'I came here today as I yearn for my home town. I'm so glad.' Two trains ran. One, from South to North, ran on the western Gyeongui Line to the city of Kaesong, just across the border. Brass bands, traditional musicians, politicians, and crowds of schoolchildren and senior citizens came to wish it well as it set out from Munsan Station for Dorasan, the southern customs post on the DMZ, and the North.

The other, from North to South, ran from Mt Kumgang to South Korea's Chejin Station on the eastern Donghae Line. Both trains returned later in the day after trips of about 24km.

Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said as he boarded the train bound for Kaesong: 'Today, the heart of the Korean peninsula will start beating again.'

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun called the test run 'a historically important step towards peace'.

Former unification minister, ex-ruling party head and current presidential hopeful Chung Dong-young has written a book, Buy Train Tickets for Paris at Kaesong Station, published last month.

The reaction of North Korea's propaganda machine was less ebullient. The country's TV news ran a short segment on the run without visuals; the main newspaper, the Rodong Shinmun (Labour Daily) remained silent.

South Korean journalists on the northbound train noticed that, in contrast to the festive atmosphere at Munsan and Dorasan, only seven station employees and 13 customs officers welcomed the southern train when it passed the northern border post at Panmun Station. In contrast to the crowds of well-wishers who congregated at Munsan Station, only 100 carefully orchestrated schoolchildren greeted the train at Kaesong.

Meanwhile, the southbound northern train was a decrepit 1968 locomotive. 'The Great Leader, Kim Il-sung, boarded this train,' banners on the side trumpeted. South Koreans were told the North possesses more modern trains, but this one was chosen for its political significance. As the train had no radio, all signals were given by hand.

'It took more than half a century to cross this short distance,' one media outlet quoted South Korea's Railway Minister Kim Yong-sam as telling his northern counterparts. 'We have to prevent anyone from blocking the railways. They were so hard to reconnect.' That 'anyone' is almost certainly a reference to the North's hard-line military, which blocked plans for a test run last year when it refused to grant security guarantees to the southern train.

Associations of North Korean defectors in the South were critical of the test. 'The historic railroad reconnection has become a political show because of the South's pork- barrel gifts to Kim Jong-il's regime,' the North Korean Democratisation Alliance said.

Riot police - in plain clothes - moved groups of anti-Pyongyang demonstrators away from Munsan Station before 100 North Korean dignitaries, who arrived in coaches from across the border, boarded the train for the trip north.

Surrounded on three sides by the sea, and bordered in the north by the North, South Korea is essentially an island. However, if the North allows southern trains throughput, granting them access to the Trans-Siberian Express - what the South Koreans like to call 'The Iron Silk Road' - it would cut costs and shipping time for exports to the European Union (with whom Seoul is engaged in free trade agreement talks) by two thirds.

In 2000, the two Koreas agreed to re-link their rail lines. The South paid for minefield clearance, reconstruction of tracks across the DMZ, and construction of stations, such as the steel and glass edifice that is the station/customs post of Dorasan (named after the nearby observation post Dora in the DMZ). Reconnection was completed in 2005.

However, the North's rail network is by no means ready to convey South Korea's goods - and won't be for a while. 'First, it is necessary to have a special framework agreement for regular operations, and we have to resolve the different technical standards and systems problems,' said Kim Sung-ho of the Korea Transport Institute (KOTI).

The barriers are daunting. The KOTI notes that much of the North's infrastructure needs to be rebuilt. Some sections of the rail near the northern border have different gauges. There is a shortage of electric power. Single-track operations create inefficiencies. And safety standards are inadequate.

That was clear when, in 2004, an explosion devastated the town of Ryongchon, killing at least 154 people and injuring thousands. The exact cause of the blast remains unknown, but indicators point to a power cable falling onto rail wagons carrying explosives.

The price tag to fix the North's infrastructure is immense: estimates range from US$2 billion to almost US$10 billion. Moreover, the Donghae Line faces problems in South Korea. There is no track in the 120km stretch between Chejin, near the border, and the northernmost significant city on South Korea's east coast, Gangneung. With the area heavily populated, the chances of a new line being put through look slim.

Just the reconnections of the short spans crossing the border cost US$585 million. And a major sum had to be promised to Pyongyang before the northern military permitted the run to go ahead: US$80 million in light industrial support. As a local paper put it, for the 200 South Koreas who boarded the train to Kaesong, it was the most expensive rail trip in history.

Still, Seoul looks willing to cough up. 'No matter how much it costs, it's an investment for our economy,' the unification minister, Mr Lee, said at a seminar on railroad connection.

And responding to criticism about the one-off nature of the test, he hit back in a radio interview the following day, saying: 'The North has shared the view with us that the test runs should lead to the opening of cross-border rail service.' He was to raise train services in inter-Korean ministerial-level talks at the end of last month, but the talks stalled.

Despite hopes for the 'iron silk road' the first phase in any reconnection is likely to be modest. In a first step, Seoul hopes to connect the two South Korean enclaves in North Korea: the Kaesong Joint Industrial Complex and the Mt Kumgang tourist resort. Roads already run through the DMZ to both those areas.

Beyond that, political barriers look immense. The North's military, which relies heavily on the rail network, would almost certainly resist South Korean engineers working on their turf.

'Let's calm down,' urged an editorial in the Joongang Ilbo newspaper. 'Let's not get too excited about the reconnection of the severed artery after half a century. The 'Iron Silk Road' is still far away; right now we only have empty tracks that are connected.'

The inter-Korean talks broke down over the South's refusal to provide food aid before the North disarms its nuclear weapons. Nothing was agreed on rail services.

Even so, a thaw in the cold war atmosphere on the peninsula appears to be under way, with the docking last month of a North Korean freighter at the South Korean port of Pusan.

Although a cruise ship carrying North Korea athletes docked at Pusan during the 2002 Asian Games, and ships carrying rice aid for then flood-hit South Korea docked in 1984, this was the first commercial service since the Korean war.

The ship, the 1,853-tonne Kangsong, will run three times a month between Pusan and the North Korean port of Rajin, part of the Rajin-Songbong Special Economic Zone in the northeast. It will carry goods from Rajin - famous for seafood, among other things - to the South.

The Kangsong is leased by the South Korea company Kukbo, which anticipates a bounty of ever-increasing North-South trade.

The question for South Korea now must be convincing Pyongyang that it is in the impoverished state's own interests to allow South Korea goods and personnel to move beyond the carefully segregated areas the North opens to outsiders - Kumgang, Kaesong and Rajin-Songbong, and reaping the resultant economic benefits.