[USFK Forums] South & North Korea open 1st cross-border commercial telecom links [AFP

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Wednesday, December 28, 2005

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Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 28 December 2005 1525 hrs

South & North Korea open 1st cross- border commercial telecom links

SEOUL(AFP) : South and North Korea have opened cross-border commercial communications lines for the first time since their division in 1945.

The links were activated in a ceremony attended by North and South Korean government officials at an industrial zone in North Korea's border city of Kaesong, the information ministry in Seoul said.

South Korean Information Minister Chin Dae-Je said the new phone service would pave the way for inter-Korean cooperation in the information and technology sector.

"There will be further inter-Korean talks aimed at stepping up cooperation and exchanges in the IT sector between the two sides," he said in a statement released here.

The two Koreas, which fought a war between 1950-53, had communicated only through military-controlled hotlines for official talks aimed at preventing accidental clashes.

South Korean firms operating in the Kaesong zone had used expensive satellite phones via a third country to talk to their offices in Seoul.

Fifteen labor-intensive South Korean firms have moved into a complex in the industrial zone, which is still under construction.

The opening of inter-Korean communications lines was made possible after the United States allowed South Korea to ship telecommunications equipment to the North.

The United States bans the shipment of strategic goods to North Korea and other countries regarded as state sponsors of terrorism.

- AFP /ct