Soldiers from North and South Korea criss-crossed their heavily-fortified border Wednesday to inspect efforts to remove front-line guard posts from their respective sides, Voice of America reported.
Inspection teams from South Korea were greeted by North Korean soldiers when they stepped into the Demilitarized Zone early Wednesday, both sides exchanging handshakes and cigarettes before the South Koreans crossed the border to begin their inspections.
The South Koreans visited 11 North Korean guard posts to make sure they had either been dismantled or disarmed, and if any underground structures were left undestroyed. North Korean inspection teams crossed the border hours later to perform similar inspections on 11 South Korean border posts.
As part of the talks between the divided peninsula, the South’s President Moon Jae-in and the North’s Kim Jong-un agreed to remove some of the guard posts on the heavily fortified border, BBC adds.
The two leaders held a historic meeting in April, which led to talk between North Korea and the United States.
“This marks the first time since the division that the soldiers of the North and South… are peacefully crossing the military demarcation line,” the South Korean defence ministry said in a statement.
Both sides still have more guard posts in the DMZ, both over and underground. Last November, shots rung out across the DMZ after a North Korean soldier made a dash across the border. Now the two sides are shaking hands, exchanging cigarettes and walking into each other’s territory peacefully for the first time.
Seoul hopes that these small steps will be irreversible and it will become difficult for either side to backtrack on what they believe is a path towards peace.
However, the U.S. maintains it will never allow an agreement to formally end the Korean war, nor will it lift economic sanctions imposed upon the North while the Kim regime poses a nuclear threat.
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