Public tour of Dorasan Station resumes from July. 
(Published March 19, 2013)

The related organizations concluded an implementing agreement.

◇ Public tour of Dorasan Station, which was ceased due to the security accident of the tourists in 2009, is expected to reopen from July, marking the 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice. The photo shows Dorasan Observatory. ⓒ G-News Plus
 
Public tour of Dorasan Station, which was ceased due to the security accident of the tourists in 2009, is expected to restart from July, marking the 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice.

Gyeonggi Province announced on March 19 that it concluded ‘Joint Agreement on Public Tour of Dorasan Station’ with ROK Army 1st Infantry Division, Ministry of Unification(Inter-Korean Transit Office), Paju City, and Korea Railroad Corporation on Dec 28 last year, and also concluded the implementing agreement on March 4 this year so that each organ faithfully implements its responsibilities.
 
The province expects that this year becomes ‘the first year of DMZ globalization and security tourism’ in earnest as an accessibility to representative domestic tourist spots including Imjingak tourist spot, DMZ Third Tunnel of Aggression, and Dorasan Observatory has been improved due to the implementing agreement. The tour of Dorasan Station once
was one of the representative security tourist attractions as the station opened in 2002 according to the June 15th South-North Joint Declaration and operated the tourist trains 6 times a day through Gyeongui Line, accommodating more than 50,000 tourists each year.

However, the tour was ceased on June 4, 2010 due to the security accident of the tourists in 2009, and the number of visitors significantly decreased to meager 5,000, thereby requiring measures to cope with the situation.
To resume the tour of Dorasan Station, a symbolic place for hope for the unification of the Korean Peninsula, the province discussed with the authorities involved over the prevention of the security accidents a dozen times from December, 2009 to December, 2012, finally achieving the implementing agreement.

A supervisor of DMZ Policy Department of the province Lee Sung-geun said, “The resumption for this time is a best practice in which the army and the local government cooperated with to spread the movement on love of Korea and promote a sense of national security.” He also added, “Amid the increasing insecurity due to potential provocations of North Korea in recent days, the resumption was possible as the First Division considered ‘High awareness of national security as the best national defense’ from a broad point of view.”
 
“Marking the 60th anniversary of the armistice agreement, we are planning to promote the DMZ district as a repository of the history, peace, and ecology and also to promote Dorasan Station as the global tourist attraction in an aggressive way by resuming the public tour of the station,” He also added.

Meanwhile, Gyeonggi Province and Korea Railroad Corporation plan to provide various experiences to visitors including security experiences and others which make feel nostalgia for the old days by restoring a steam locomotive to the original form, once a symbol of the division of South and North, which was left unattended in the Demilitarized Zone for over a half century due to exposure and derailment of the railway during the Korean war.◇ Gyeonggi Province and Korea Railroad Corporation plan to provide security experiences to tourist and make them feel nostalgia for the old days by reproducing the old steam locomotive, a symbol of the division of South and North Korea, which was left unattended in the Demilitarized Zone for over a half century. ⓒ G-News Plus
 
ⓒ G-News Plus News | Chun Kyung-nam chun0403@kg21.net
 
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