Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The North Korean government has postponed indefinitely talks with South Korea on improving recently established north-south rail links. For some analysts the decision is likely a symbolic show of displeasure vis-à-vis South Korea's incoming president, Lee Myung-bak.
Pyongyang asked for the two-day talks to be suspended because ""it is the start of the year and there are a few things to prepare", South Korea's Unification Ministry said.
No date was given for the talks to be resumed, the ministry said.
According to an anonymous source in the Ministry the cancelling of the meeting was a signal of Pyongyang’s “displeasure” towards the new South Korean president who is scheduled to take office next month.
The president-elect said that he did not fear North Korea and that the latter must conform to international standards or remain cut off from the rest of the world.”
The “peace train” link was inaugurated on 11 December 2007 and trains running on a daily basis. It is the first time that the highly militarised border was crossed more than 50 years after the peninsula was divided.
The deal that included the train link was achieved on 17 November 2007—after President Roh’s historic visit to Pyongyang—when the prime ministers of the two Koreas met in Seoul for the first time since 1992.
The 25-kilometre railway line links Minsan, in the south, to Bongdong, in the north. It facilitates the transport of goods made in the North Korean industrial complex in Kaesŏng, the first large scale inter-Korean economic joint-venture.