Aju Business Daily

SEOUL -- Wearing bullet-proof jackets and helmets, tourists will be guided by armed soldiers deep into deactivated guard posts within the firing range of North Korean troops this year if South Korea opens a risky tour program that goes through the world's last Cold War frontier for the first time since an inter-Korean war ended more than six decades ago.

The Seoul government unveiled a project on Wednesday to open three border areas for guided hiking trails, capitalizing on an inter-Korean agreement to turn in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) into a genuine peace zone. The zone is a four-kilometer-wide strip of land that has divided the peninsula since an armistice accord ended the three-year conflict in 1953.

Three trails for group tours will be set up along border fences each in Paju, Cheorwon and Goseong if toilets, security cameras and safety equipment get ready, starting in late April in the eastern coastal town of Goseong. Two walking trails in Paju and Cheorwon will be connected to deactivated DMZ guard posts.

Escorted by armed soldiers, tourists selected by lottery will be allowed to move aboard military vehicles when they travel into the southern side of DMZ. They should wear bullet-proof jackets and helmets if they reach guard posts, which are located within the firing range of North Korean soldiers.

To remove the risk of war, the two Koreas stopped all hostile activities including artillery drills and field maneuvers on November 1 last year by setting up maritime, air and ground buffer zones in front-line areas.

South Korea has barred civilian access to the DMZ, which has been heavily fortified with minefields, concrete walls and electric fences. Armed clashes and shooting have raised cross-border tensions sporadically between South and North Korean troops manning entrenched concrete guard posts inside the zone.

North Korea has deployed mortars and large-caliber machine guns at 160 guard posts while South Korea has built concrete bunkers in 60 places for ambush and patrol. Under a rapprochement agreement signed in September last year, the two Koreas tore down 10 DMZ guard posts each on a trial basis and deactivated two for historical preservation.