A train enters Dorasan Station near the border with North Korea on Friday. South Korea resumed tourist rail service to the border station for the first time in over six years. Pool Photo by Yonhap
Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Friday the resumption of tourist rail service to the border with North Korea is a “small” starting point for establishing peace with Pyongyang, as Seoul reopened a long-closed border rail station.
Earlier in the day, South Korea resumed tourist rail service to and from its northernmost Dorasan Station in the border city of Paju, which is a symbol of inter-Korean cooperation that once connected the two Koreas.
“The resumption of train service is a small starting point toward establishing everyday peace, allowing people to experience it in their daily lives,” Chung said in a ceremony marking the event.
“When tourists can visit, see and experience the site of peace at Dorasan Station, peace will finally become an everyday language that breathes in our lives, rather than grand discourse,” he said.
The station, the northern endpoint of South Korea’s rail network just south of the inter-Korean border, was established after the then South and North Korean leaders agreed to connect their railways at a 2000 summit held amid a period of reconciliation between the two Koreas.
Freight trains once ran through Dorasan Station between the two Koreas, carrying materials and finished goods to and from the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a jointly operated factory park in North Korea that was shut down amid inter-Korean tensions in 2016.
Since then, the station had served tourist trains carrying passengers in South Korea to border areas, before closing completely in late 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The resumption of the border station comes as Seoul continues efforts to resume dialogue and engagement with North Korea to reduce military tensions and establish peace, despite Pyongyang’s repeated rebuffs.
“Only peace and coexistence, as well as reconciliation and cooperation, are the path to mutual prosperity for the South and the North, not worthless animosity and confrontation,” Chung also noted.
He said he believes the two Koreas can surely establish new relations that accommodate the changing international situation and their respective national interests, expressing hope that their railways could be reconnected in the future.
The resumption of rail service to the station will allow tourists to travel by train beyond the Civilian Control Line, which restricts public access near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas.
The train, named “DMZ Peace Link,” departs from Seoul Station and stops at Unjeong and Imjingang before reaching Dorasan Station, where tourists can visit a nearby observation post and a tourist village.
It runs once on the second and fourth Fridays each month till May, before expanding to every Friday from June.
Going forward, the government, municipalities and the rail agency plan to add more tourist destinations near the border station to provide various programs aimed at promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula.
