North and South Korea to hold groundbreaking ceremony to reconnect road and rail links

A South Korean delegation left for North Korea today to attend a groundbreaking ceremony for reconnecting roads and railways across the divided peninsula despite stalled denuclearisation talks.

A nine-car special train carrying some 100 South Koreans, including officials and five people born in the North, was seen leaving Seoul railway station early in the morning for a two-hour journey to the North's border city of Kaesong.

South Korean



President Moon Jae-in and the North's leader Kim Jong Un had agreed to hold the ceremony by the end of the year when they met at their third summit in Pyongyang in September.

Concerns arose that the train and other materials being brought into the North for the ceremony could breach various sanctions imposed on Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons programme, but the UN Security Council reportedly granted a waver for the event.