[Yonhap Photo]
SEOUL -- South and North Korean military officials agreed Monday to speed up the restoration of their telephone and fax lines which were cut off at the height of cross-border tensions caused the North's nuclear and ballistic missile tests.
After a landmark inter-Korean summit in 2000, the two sides used to run two communications lines each on the western side and the eastern side of their border. Restoring military communication lines has been a pressing issue to prevent accidental conflicts and spur personnel exchanges across the heavily armed border.
At talks on Monday, the two sides agreed to restore their military communication line on the western side first at an early date, according to the South's defense ministry. The South Korean delegation was led by Army Colonel Cho Yong-geun and the North Korean side headed by Colonel Om Chang-nam.
On the western side, a telephone link was restored in January after North Korea agreed to participate in this year's Winter Olympics in South Korea, but the fax line remained crippled. Restoring the eastern line is more complicated because it was completely destroyed by a bushfire in 2013.
The two Koreas held the first round of general-level military talks on June 14 to implement a peace agreement signed by their leaders in April to cease all acts of hostilities against the other side and work on establishing a permanent peace regime that would end confrontation for more than six decades.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has proposed a joint project to recover the remains of soldiers who were killed during and after the 1950-53 Korean War and buried in the demilitarized zone that splits the Korean peninsula.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
