SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea stunned South Korea yesterday with an abrupt decision to cancel landmark test runs of trains across the two nations' heavily guarded border, underscoring the mercurial nature of the communist regime.
South Korea quickly expressed its displeasure. Vice Unification Minister Shin Eon-sang called the cancellation – which came barely 24 hours before the planned test – “very regrettable,” and warned that his government would consider taking “necessary steps.”
He did not elaborate, but local media raised the possibility of the South reconsidering economic aid to the impoverished North.
The tests, on a short span of track, would have been the first train crossings of the Korean border in more than a half-century and were a high-profile element of efforts at detente between the North and South since a pivotal summit in 2000.
Train service between the Koreas was halted in June 1951.
North Korea said the situation on the divided peninsula had become too “unstable” to conduct the test runs, criticizing “pro-U.S. ultra-right conservative forces” in the South for “pushing the situation in Korea to an extreme phase of confrontation and war.”
Multilateral talks on ending the North's nuclear weapons program have hit a snag since the last round in November.
