Soldiers plan to remove mines

South Korean soldiers will enter a heavily fortified buffer zone with communist North Korea to remove land mines before reconnecting a rail line across the border, officials said on Saturday.

Both Koreas agreed last week to reconnect the railway that links Seoul to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, then continues to Shinuiju, a major city on the North's border with the mainland.

No train has run on the line across the border since the peninsula's division into the communist North and the pro-Western South in 1945.

The agreement to reconnect the line followed the historic summit between the two Koreas, in which their leaders agreed to work for reconciliation after a half century of enmity.

About 1,000 soldiers will work inside the 4km-wide Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, separating the two Koreas, to clear the mines before workers could rebuild the railroad, said Defense Ministry officials.

The minesweeping operation may start as early as mid-September, they said.

The Koreas plan to start rebuilding a 20km section across the DMZ and complete the work in a year.