Russia's Putin to Visit Korea about a Connecting Railroad Corridor, Part of the Eurasian Land-Bridge

May 3 (EIRNS)--South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit Korea to discuss speeding up connection of the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR) to the Trans-Korean Railway (TKR), Donga press service quoted a senior official of the Uri political party saying May 2.

"Former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook ... delivered a personally handwritten letter from President Roh to President Putin on April 25," the official said.

"Considering that the test runs of the Gyeongui and Donghae lines [the two new connections of the South Korean to the North Korean rail lines, finished in 2003] were agreed to be carried out on the 17th of May, at the 13th inter-Korean economic cooperation talks, it can be assumed that the request was made to resolve the deadlock in business cooperation between the [Russian] TSR and [Korean] TKR."

Han also met Vladimir Yakunin, the president of the Russian Railways, and the two had an "in-depth" discussion on building the rail links from Russia through the Korean Peninsula.

This project to build the rail connection between Korea and Russia was agreed upon by former Korea President Kim Dae-jung and Putin in February 2001, but has not yet been started.

Recently, progress has been made in resolving the Korean peninsula nuclear issue by the Six-Party talks, and, independently, the two Korean governments agreed to go ahead with test runs on the completed rail lines.

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