Two trains from North and South Korea crossed the heavily armed border today, restoring for the first time an artery severed in the 1950-1953 fratricidal war and fanning dreams of unification.
The trains carried 100 South Koreans and 50 North Koreans.
It took the two Koreas 56 years to send the trains -- one starting in the South and one in the North -- across the Cold War's last frontier for the runs of about 25 km (15 miles).
The two Koreas, still technically still at war because their conflict ended only in a truce, have lived with a razor wire and land-mine strewn border dividing the peninsula for decades and over a million troops are stationed near the countries' demilitarized buffer zone.
To entice the North to allow the crossing, South Korea has offered some $80 million in aid for its light industries.
[Reuters]
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