(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-25 19:56

Seoul -- Officials from South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Friday in a working- level meeting discussed security measures for various joint economic projects, but the talks ended with little progress, according to.

The one-day meeting ended shortly after 1 pm, according to the South Korean Defense Ministry. The DPRK delegation was led by Col. Pak Rim-su, deputy head of Pyongyang's mission to Panmunjom officially called the Joint Security Area.

"At the meeting, the two sides discussed the train cargo service between Munsan and (the North's) Bondong and other issues agreed to at the second defense ministerial talks" held in DPRK's capital late last year, the ministry said in a statement.

"The sides agreed to continue discussing these issues in the future through additional contacts," the statement said.

High on the agenda of Friday's meeting were security issues related to a regular cross-border cargo train service, which is at the center of the two countries' economic projects aimed at reconciliation. The service was launched on December 11 following an agreement made by the leaders of the two Koreas at their October summit.

"The meeting will largely focus on evaluating issues related to the operation (of the cargo train service), such as security guarantees, as it has been over a month since the train service was launched," Kim Hyung-ki, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, told reporters earlier this week, noting that the meeting comes at the request of the DPRK.

The train service, the first of its kind since the inter-Korean railway connecting Seoul to DPRK's capital Pyongyang was severed during the 1950-53 Korean War, runs daily, carrying raw materials and manufactured goods to and from the more than 50 South Korean businesses operating at a joint industrial complex in DPRK's border town of Kaesong.

Another key agenda item was securing ways to guarantee freer access for South Korean businesses and investors to the Kaesong complex, a symbol of rapprochement between the two Koreas agreed to at the first inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang in 2000.

At last year's summit, the second between the two states, and a follow-up meeting by the countries' prime ministers in Seoul, the DPRK promised to extend the operating hours of its border control office to improve access for South Korean workers in Kaesong, and also allow Internet access to South Korean businesses there for the first time.

Such plans, however, have seen little progress as they largely depend on DPRK's military, which is nervous about opening or exposing its country's sensitive areas to outsiders.