South Korean President Moon Jae-in shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during their meeting at the Peace House at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, South Korea, April 27, 2018.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in wants to create a Northeast Asian railroad community with North Korea, the United States, China, Japan, Russia and Mongolia, Yonhap News reported on Wednesday.

Speaking at an event marking his country's independence from Japanese rule, Moon said such a "community" could eventually herald the launch of a "multilateral security system" in the region, according to the report.

"This community will lead to an energy bloc and economic bloc in Northeast Asia by expanding our economic area to the northern continent and becoming the foundation of co-existence and prosperity in Northeast Asia," Moon projected, according to Yonhap.

The president's administration will seek to link railways and roads with the North before year-end, Yonhap said.

The initiative is one of many efforts that Seoul is undertaking to strengthen peace in Northeast Asia following June's milestone U.S.-North Korea summit. Since then, the reclusive regime has dismantled some missile engine testing facilities, but many question leader Kim Jong Un's willingness to deliver on the denuclearization promise he made to President Donald Trump.

Moon also called for broad energy and economic cooperation with the North on Wednesday, stressing his goal to politically unify both countries. "True liberation" will only be achieved when the two neighbors establish a lasting peace and economic relations, the head of state was quoted as saying.

The South Korean leader indicated that he will soon visit Pyongyang for a third bilateral summit with Kim. In May, the duo held their official second meeting at the border village of Panmunjom following an earlier summit in April.

For more on Moon's Wednesday speech, see Yonhap's full report. </s> SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said on Wednesday his planned third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month would be another step towards the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and an end to the 1950-53 Korean War.

Moon said he hoped for speedy progress in talks between North Korea and the United States to achieve Pyongyang’s complete denuclearization.

He also said he aimed to begin construction of an inter-Korean railway this year, proposing an East Asian railroad community by including the United States, China, Japan, Russia and Mongolia. His remarks were made in a speech marking the 73rd anniversary of the peninsula’s liberation from Japanese rule from 1910-45. </s> Establishing a joint economic community between North and South Korea and introducing the possibility of unrestricted cross-border travel will be "true liberation," South Korean President Moon Jae-in said.

"We must overcome such a division for our survival and development. Even though a political unification may be a long way from here, establishing peace between the South and the North and freely visiting each other, and forming a joint economic community is true liberation to us," Moon Jae-in was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.

"This community will lead to an energy bloc and economic bloc in Northeast Asia by expanding our economic area to the northern continent and becoming the foundation of co-existence and prosperity in Northeast Asia. And this will mark the start to a multilateral security system in Northeast Asia," Moon Jae-in was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.

Moon added that he hoped for the full denuclearization of North Korea. When the peace has been established, the countries may set up at least two special economic zones next to Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces, Moon said, according to the Yonhap.

Moon's special adviser on foreign affairs said Tuesday that the next summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may take place on September 12-13.

The official reportedly said the meeting was unlikely to take place earlier than September 9. On that date Pyongyang is celebrating the Day of the Foundation of the Republic.

At the same time, the presidential adviser said that the possibility of North and South Korea announcing the end of war at the General Assembly of the United Nations at the end of September "decreased," but it still existed.

Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un have met twice since the beginning of the year, in April and then in May. </s> SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean officials have traveled to North Korea by train to attend a groundbreaking ceremony for an aspirational project to modernize North Korean railways and roads and connect them with the South.

Wednesday’s ceremony at the North Korean border town of Kaesong comes weeks after the Koreas conducted a joint survey on the northern railway sections they hope to someday link with the South.

The ambitious project is among a variety of peace gestures agreed between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in as they push ahead with engagement amid a stalemate in larger nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang.

But beyond on-site reviews and ceremonies, the Koreas cannot move the project much further along without the removal of U.S.-led sanctions against the North.

During his three summits with Moon and a meeting with President Donald Trump in June, Kim signed vague statements pledging a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing how and when it would occur. But followup nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled for months over the sequencing of the denuclearization that Washington wants and the removal of international sanctions desired by Pyongyang.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said the Seoul government plans to conduct further surveys on North Korean railways and roads before drawing up a detailed blueprint for the project.

“Actual construction will be pursued in accordance with progress in the North’s denuclearization and the state of sanctions against the North,” the ministry said in a statement.

Even if the North takes concrete steps toward denuclearization and gains sanctions relief, some experts say updating North Korean rail networks and trains, which creak slowly along the rails that were first built in the early 20th century, could take decades and massive investment.

Seoul said it received an exemption to sanctions from the U.N. Security Council to proceed with Wednesday’s ceremony as it involved the usage of South Korean transport vehicles and goods. The Koreas’ joint survey of North Korean railways in November, which also required U.N. approval, marked the first time a South Korean train traveled on North Korean tracks.

The Koreas in December 2007 began freight services between South Korea’s Munsan Station in Paju and the North’s Panmun Station to support operations at a now-shuttered joint factory park in Kaesong. The South used the trains to move construction materials north, while clothing and shoes made at the factory park were sent south. The line was cut in November 2008 due to political tensions over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

The Kaesong factory park was shut down under the South’s previous conservative government in February 2016 following a North Korean nuclear test and long-range rocket launch. </s> (Bloomberg) -- North and South Korean staged a symbolic ground-breaking ceremony to upgrade severed rail links, although UN Security Council approval would be needed to advance the project.

Long-stalled plans to restore rail links severed by the Korean War were revived in historic summits by North Korea leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in earlier this year. While South Korea said the Security Council granted an exemption to United Nations sanctions Tuesday to allow the ceremony to proceed, additional relief would be needed to start construction.

“The result of the North and South Korean railway and road project depends on our nation’s mental strength and will. If we are swayed by others’ views, we cannot achieve the unification that our nation wants,” Kim Yun Hyok, North Korea’s vice railway minister, said at the ceremony, according to the YTN TV network.

“Railways will now also play a role of reducing the gap between the hearts of South and North Korea,” South Korean Transport Minister Kim Hyun-mee said.

The rail project was first launched more than 15 years ago, but scuttled by political acrimony and global sanctions imposed on Pyongyang over its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The U.S., which holds a Security Council veto, has refused to ease the economic penalties until North Korea takes steps toward disarmament and talks between the two sides have achieved little progress.

Last week, North Korean state media said removal of the U.S.’s nuclear weapons from the region was a condition of its own disarmament, raising the stakes for President Donald Trump’s efforts to hold a second summit with Kim, after their first meeting in June.

Seoul has said work to modernize North Korean railways and roads before connecting them with its own wouldn’t start until the international sanctions against Pyongyang were lifted, adding construction hinges on North Korea’s denuclearization steps.

North Korean Ri Son Gwon who oversees the North’s exchanges with the South, his South Korean counterpart Cho Myoung-Gyon and transport officials from China, Russia and Mongolia were among the hundreds of people attending the rail event in the North Korean border city of Gaeseong.

Sanctions enforced by the Security Council and the U.S. prohibit sending fuel or conducting economic activities that could generate cash for Kim’s regime. South Korea said in November it had won exemptions for the rail survey.

The last rail service during the 1950-1953 Korean War came in 1951 when a train carrying wounded soldiers and refugees crossed into South Korea. Links were cut for decades after that.

But a few years after the first summit of leaders on the divided peninsula in 2000, South Korea built roads and restored rail links to the North Korean border region. For a brief period about a decade ago, South Korea ran freight trains into Gaeseong, where South Korea had an industrial park, until political tensions undermined the project.

Moon’s rapprochement toward North Korea included three summits with Kim Jong Un this year, but have been limited by international sanctions and the slowing pace of diplomacy between the two sides.

Pyongyang hasn’t responded to the latest move by Washington to review its policy on humanitarian aid to the North, which was proposed when U.S. nuclear envoy Stephen Biegun was in Seoul last week.

The Chinese ambassador to South Korea, Qiu Guohong, told South Korea’s Kim Hyun-mee during the event Wednesday that he believed the railway project would help denuclearization.

To contact the reporters on this story: Youkyung Lee in Seoul at ylee582@bloomberg.net;Sohee Kim in Seoul at skim847@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Jon Herskovitz

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com </s> North and South Korea have symbolically joined their railway networks together as they begin work to reconnect transport networks between the two countries.

But construction on the project cannot actually begin because of international sanctions banning the import of metals and energy products into North Korea.

Instead, engineers from the North and South - which are still technically at war - will spend the next two years conducting joint surveys and doing design work.

The groundbreaking ceremony was held at Panmun Station in the border city of Kaesong on Wednesday.

A train full of 100 South Korean government officials, ministers and family members displaced by the Korean War was driven to the station for the event.

They were in turn greeted by a 100-strong North Korean delegation, as well as officials from the United Nations, China, Russia and Mongolia - amid wider plans to link North Korea with the trans-Siberia and trans-China railways.

But, underlining the scale of the challenges facing the project, even getting a train to Panmun required South Korea to obtain a permit from the UN Security Council.

Kim Yun Hyok, the North Korean vice railways minister, said the Koreas should push further with engagement instead of 'wobbling on the path while listening to what others think,' designed as a rebuke to Seoul over its close ties with America.

North Korea has repeatedly voiced displeasure about the slow progress in the reconciliatory projects agreed between their leaders.

The Seoul government plans to conduct further surveys on North Korean railways and roads before drawing up a detailed blueprint for the project.

Actual construction will proceed depending on the progress in the North's denuclearization and the state of sanctions against the country, the ministry said.

'We plan to hold detailed negotiations with the North to coordinate on the specific levels we want to achieve in the modernization of railways and roads and how to carry out the project,' said Eugene Lee, the ministry's spokeswoman.

South Korea has set aside some $600,000 for the project, but experts say the North's transport infrastructure is so dilapidated that it could take decades and absorb billions of dollars to modernise.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to the ceremony during a September summit in Pyongyang with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a step toward joint industrial zones and reconnecting transport links.

It is another example of the thaw in relations between the Koreas, which began at the Winter Olympics and saw Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in holding hands while listening to K-Pop together.

The same thawing also saw American President Donald Trump meet with Kim in Singapore for the first ever summit between the two countries.

Trump let the summit full of admiration for Kim and certain he had achieved concrete steps towards 'denuclearising' the North, but progress has stalled over what that word actually means.

Pyongyang insists that it has taken several concrete steps towards winding down its nuclear weapons program, such as destroying the underground Punggye-ri testing site, and that it is time for America to reciprocate by lifting sanctions.

However, Washington is insisting that North Korea give up its entire nuclear arsenal first before sanctions are lifted later - an idea that Pyongyang has balked at.

A second summit between Trump and Kim is scheduled to take place in Washington sometime early next year, which the US leader has said he is 'looking forward' to. </s> South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivers a speech during a ceremony celebrating the 99th anniversary of the March First Independence Movement against Japanese colonial rule, at Seodaemun Prison History Hall in Seoul, South Korea, March 1, 2018. Photo by Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his wife will pay a three-day official visit to Vietnam starting next Thursday, according to Vietnam's foreign ministry.

During the visit, Moon will attend a summit with his Vietnamese counterpart Tran Dai Quang, and meet other government leaders, including General Secretary of the Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong.

This will be Moon's first official visit to Vietnam since he took office last May, and his second visit to Vietnam after attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Da Nang last November.

The South Korean president's economic delegation will include top executives of Samsung Electronics, the Hyundai Motor Group, SK Innovation and LG Chem, Yonhap reported.

Vietnam is currently South Korea's third largest trade partner and South Korea is Vietnam's second largest trade partner, with bilateral trade volume reaching nearly $61.6 billion last year, according to Vietnam Customs. South Korea is also Vietnam's biggest foreign investor, with its firms investing more than $50 billion in Vietnam between 1988 and 2016.

Moon's visit to Vietnam will be his second official visit to an ASEAN country as part of his "New Southern Policy," which aims to elevate South Korea's relations with ASEAN to the same level as its relations with the U.S., Japan, China and the E.U.

"Vietnam is our largest trading partner in Southeast Asia, and a core partner country for our New Southern Policy," Reuters quoted Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom as saying.

During the Vietnam visit, Moon is also expected to seek ASEAN support and cooperation ahead of the historic inter-Korean summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un next month. Stressing the importance of ASEAN in de-escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula, Moon has promised to visit all 10 of its member states before the end of his term in 2022. </s> South Korean President Moon Jae-In (R) and U.S. President Donald Trump (L) walk towards a guard of honour during a welcoming ceremony at the presidential Blue House on November 7, 2017 in Seoul, South Korea. Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
• South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Wednesday a three-way summit with North Korea and the United States is possible.
• Moon said talks should aim for an end to the nuclear threat on the Korean peninsula.
• President Donald Trump has said he would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by the end of May.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Wednesday a three-way summit with North Korea and the United States is possible and that talks should aim for an end to the nuclear threat on the Korean peninsula.

Moon is planning a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month after a flurry of diplomatic activity in Asia, Europe and the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump has also said he would meet Kim by the end of May.

"A North Korea-U.S. summit would be a historic event in itself following an inter-Korean summit," Moon said at the presidential Blue House in Seoul after a preparatory meeting for the inter-Korean summit.

"Depending on the location, it could be even more dramatic. And depending on progress, it may lead to a three-way summit between the South, North and the United States," he said.

Seoul officials are considering the border truce village of Panmunjom, where Moon and Kim are set for a one-day meeting, as the venue for talks between not only Kim and Moon but also a possible three-way meeting.

A Blue House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Moon did not specifically refer to Panmunjom or that a three-way summit had been discussed with Washington before the president spoke.

The rush of recent diplomatic contacts began in the lead-up to the Winter Olympics in South Korea last month and helped ease tensions on the Korean peninsula caused by North Korea's pursuit of its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of United Nations Security Council sanctions.

South Korea wants to hold high-level talks with North Korea on March 29 to discuss a date and agenda for the inter-Korean summit and make a formal request to the North on Thursday, Moon's presidential office said.

North and South Korean officials should be able to agree on when the summit between Moon and Kim will take place once the officials from both sides meet this month, the Blue House official said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greets a member of the special delegation of South Korea's President at a dinner in this photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on March 6, 2018. KCNA

Moon said the series of summits should aim for a "complete end" to the nuclear and peace issues on the Korean peninsula.

He said he has a "clear goal and vision", which is for the establishment of a lasting peace to replace the ceasefire signed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean war. It also includes the normalization of North Korea-U.S. relations, the development of inter-Korean ties, and economic cooperation involving Pyongyang and Washington, he said.

However, the United States must also add its guarantee in order for peace to come about, Moon said.

"Whether the two Koreas live together or separately, we have to make it in a way that they prosper together and in peace, without interfering or causing damage to each other," Moon said.

The Blue House official said this could mean stopping propaganda broadcasts at the border that are commonly blasted from both sides over loudspeakers. The official could not say whether "interference" also referred to criticism over widely recognized human rights violations in North Korea.

South Korea and the United States will resume joint military drills next month, although the exercises are expected to overlap with the summit between the two Koreas.

Seoul and Washington delayed the annual drills until after the Winter Olympics, helping to foster conditions for a restart of such talks.

North Korea regularly denounces the drills as preparation for war but a South Korean special envoy has said Kim understood that the allies must continue their "routine" exercises. That exchange has not been confirmed.

The North's official KCNA news agency said on Wednesday a "dramatic atmosphere for reconciliation" had been created in cross-border ties and there had also been a sign of change in North Korea-U.S. relations.

That was "thanks to the proactive measure and peace-loving proposal" made by Pyongyang, not Trump's campaign to put maximum pressure on the country, KCNA said in a commentary.

The Blue House official also said earlier on Wednesday South Korea was in discussions with China and Japan for a three-way summit in Tokyo in early May. The three countries have not held such a meeting since November 2015, with relations soured by historical and territorial tensions. </s> Seoul: South Korean President Moon Jae-in plans to offer new proposals for inter-Korean engagement following the high-stakes nuclear summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Moon's announcement is planned for a ceremony on Friday marking the 100th anniversary of a 1919 uprising by Koreans against Japan's colonial rule and will likely include plans for economic cooperation between the rival Koreas.

Moon, who has prioritised improving relations with the North, is desperate for a breakthrough in nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang so he can continue his ambitious drive for inter-Korean engagement. He has driven the three-way diplomacy but is held back by tough US-led sanctions against the North.

In a meeting with senior aides on Monday, Moon expressed hope on the material progress of the North's nuclear disarmament and the easing of the sanctions, which would allow further space for inter-Korean cooperation, including joint economic projects.

Moon earlier told Trump in a phone conversation that the South was ready to proceed with inter-Korean economic projects to induce further nuclear disarmament steps from the North. Moon and Kim at their third summit in North Korea's capital last September agreed to normalize operations at a jointly run factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong and restart South Korean tours to the North's Diamond Mountain resort when possible, voicing optimism that international sanctions could end and allow such projects.

The Koreas in past months have also discussed ambitious plans to reconnect their railways and roads. "If the North Korean economy opens up, neighboring countries, international organizations and global capital will join in its development," Moon said in the meeting with aides, describing Seoul as the "main stakeholder" in issues on the Korean Peninsula. "In this process, we should not lose our initiative. We are the masters of the destiny of the Korean Peninsula."

Moon wants the Trump-Kim meeting to be followed by his fourth summit with Kim, preferably in the bustling South Korean capital of Seoul. It would be a hard sell for many South Koreans without tangible progress on ridding the North of its nukes, and Kim may be reluctant to travel to South Korea without something big to bring home.

Moon's enthusiasm for inter-Korean engagement has caused disagreements with ally Washington, which sees economic pressure as its main leverage with Pyongyang. Seoul last year walked back a proposal to lift some of its unilateral sanctions against North Korea after Trump's bluntly retorted Seoul could "do nothing" without Washington's approval.

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South Korean President Moon Jae-in announces plans to create a Northeast Asian railroad community with North Korea, the United States, China, Japan, Russia, and Mongolia.