hankyoreh

South and North Korea agreed Monday to send a 600-strong joint cheering squad to the Beijing Olympic Games in early August using a cross-border railway, the Unification Ministry said.

The agreement came at a working-level meeting of officials from the two Koreas, which was held in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.

Under the agreement, the two sides will send two 300-member cheering contingents, including support staff, on two different occasions, once in first half of the games and once in the second half of the games, which run from Aug. 8-24, the ministry said in a news release.

Each of the two contingents will be composed of 150 people from the South and 150 people from the North, it added.

They will travel on the railway that runs across the heavily armed border and that is also connected to the Chinese railway system.

The two sides will discuss other details of the joint squad in future rounds of talks, the ministry said.

Hailed as a symbol of inter-Korean peace and reconciliation, the cross-border railway was reconnected in May last year for the first time in 56 years. It was severed in the early stage of the 1950-53 Korean War.

During the second-ever summit between their leaders, the two Koreas agreed to transport the joint cheering team to the Beijing Olympics using the Gyeongui railway across the western side of the demilitarized zone.

South Korea also hopes to connect the railway to the Trans Siberian and Trans Chinese railways so products from the world's 13th biggest economy can be transported to Europe at lower costs and in less time.

Yoo Sang-il, a member of the Korean Olympic Committee, led the three-member South Korean delegation to the talks. Yoo's North Korean counterpart was Hwang Chol, a department director of the North's Council for National Reconciliation.


SEOUL, Feb. 4 (Yonhap)