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Vice-Premier Yuri Trutnev in South Korea to discuss political and economic cooperation

PYONGYANG, April 28. /ITAR-TASS/. A wide range of matters, connected with the development of political, trade-and-economic cooperation will be discussed in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) by Yuri Trutnev, RF Vice-Premier and Russia's plenipotentiary presidential representative in the Far Eastern Federal District.

An official at the RF Embassy to the DPRK told Itar-Tass that Trutnev would arrive here by air on Monday by a special flight at the head of a Russian delegation for a three-day visit.

Apart from talks with DPRK officials, the Vice-Premier will attend a ceremony marking the handover of a large consignment of fire-engines to the Korean side.

The delegation will also lay flowers to the Liberation Monument here. The Monument bears an inscription "Eternal glory to the Great Soviet Army that liberated the Korean People from the yoke of Japanese militarists and opened up the roadfor the Korean people to freedom and independence!".

The delegation leader will be accompanied by Primorstky Territory Governor Vladimir Miklushevsky, Khabarovsk Territory Governor Vyacheslav Shport, and Amur Region Governor Oleg Kozhemyako.

In March this year, the DPRK was visited by President Rustam Minnikhanov of the Republic of Tatarstan, as well as by Alexander Galushka, Russian Minister for the Development of the Far East. The latter attended a meeting of the Co-Chairmen of the Intergovernmental Commission for Trade-and-Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperaion between the Russian Federation and the DPRK as head of the Russian part of the Commission.

Moscow and Pyongyang actively strengthen economic contacts of late. The delegations of Russia and the DPRK attended a meeting the international "Organization for Cooperation of Railways. It is reckoned that the Organzation's main goals are to develop international freight and passenger transportation, and establish a Common Railway Transportation Space in Eurasia. This year the Organization's conference is being attended for the first time by South Korea as well.

Tense relations between Pyongyang and Seou are keeping on at the political level. Nevertheless, Russia is calling on the two countries to reach agreement between each other and take part in implementing the project for linking up the inter-Korean Railway and the Trans-Siberian Mainline Railway (Trans-Sib).

Railway transport is one of important areas of cooperation between the RF and the DPRK. A ceremony marking the completion of the upgrading of the railway section running from the Russian station of Khasan to the North Korean city of Rajin was held in the Republic in September last year. Work has been also completed to bring into being a general-purpose trans-shipment terminal in Rajin the principal port in the Rason trade-and-economic zone.

The upgrading of the infrastructure of the Khasan-Rajin railway leg is viewed as the pilot segment of the reconstruction of the entireTrans-Korea Railway. In prospect, when railway communication from the South Korean port of Pusan via the DPRK to Russia is established in full, an opportunity will open up to reorient to Russia's Trans-Sib a considerable part of goods, which are currently shipped now via a trans-oceanic seaway from South Korea to Europe.

The possibility is being explored for inviting South Korean businessmen to participated in developing the railway transportation infrastructure o fthe DPRK, including port facilities.