Unification and transport ministers to attend joint ceremony for railway and road project in N. Korea

A special train carrying nine cars will bring around 100 other South Korean participants, including parliamentary leaders, to the event to be held at 10 a.m. on Wednesday at Panmun Station in the North's border town of Kaesong, according to the ministry. The train will leave Seoul for the venue at around 6:45 a.m., Yonhap reports.

The event will be joined by Ri Son-gwon, the chairman of North Korea's stage agency in charge of inter-Korean ties; Kim Yun-hyok, the railway minister; and other high-ranking North Korean officials, the ministry said in a press release."The groundbreaking ceremony is meaningful in that it demonstrates the Koreas' willingness to actively cooperate on the modernization and connection project of their railways and roads going forward," the ministry said.

Armida Alisjahbana, executive secretary of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, will join the event, along with top railway and road officials from Russia, China and Mongolia.

Five South Korean civilians who have North Korean families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War were also among the invitees, the ministry said.

The Koreas' leaders agreed in April to modernize and connect the roads and railways across their border, a project aimed at fostering balanced development and co-prosperity on the Korean Peninsula.

They recently concluded an 18-day inspection of the North's railways in the western and eastern regions after the United Nations granted a sanctions waiver, ending a monthslong delay in the joint work.

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