남북 도로연구단, 동•서해선 조사구간 및 방식 협의... "추후 좀 더 논의하기로"
The two sides held a second meeting of their joint roads research group at the liaison office just north of the border.
But the session concluded with no big progress.
The delegations touched on road inspections in general... and agreed to discuss the matter further, later on.
Oh Jung-hee gets us up to speed with the developments.
Officials from South and North Korea met on Monday to discuss the schedule for road inspections... but the meeting ended with no dates set.
Five-member delegations from the both sides -- each led by a senior official from their respective land ministries -- went north of the border to the liaison office for the second meeting of the joint roads research group.
It was initially announced that they would discuss the schedule for inspecting roads along the east coast.
But according to Seoul's unification ministry, the delegations focused rather on which sections of road on both the west and east coasts should be checked... and how that should be done.
In the end they decided to continue the discussion later.
The two Koreas already inspected roads on the west coast three months ago.
In mid-August, the group had their first meeting,... and there... they agreed to inspect roads between the North Korean cities of Gaeseong and Pyeongyang for a week, which happened as planned.
But on Monday, instead of deciding on new inspections, they revisited the results of the previous ones and promised to review those.
The two Koreas are getting closer to the deadline they've set for breaking ground on work to connect and modernize their railways and roads.
At the high-level talks last month, they penciled in a ceremony for late this month or early December.
But there has been skepticism about whether they'll be able to keep making progress on railways and roads.
There have been no inspections of railways since August because of concerns they might violate sanctions.
In late August, Seoul wanted to send a research team to the North for more inspections... but that was not approved by UN Command.
Oh Jung-hee, Arirang News.
