S Korea sends communication equipment to DPRK

SEOUL, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- The South Korean government on Wednesday began to send 850-million-won (around 714,000 U.S. dollars) worth of cross-border communication equipment to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in a bid to modernize an inter-Korean military communication line.

The equipment was regarded as the latest of a series of small-scale aid provided by Seoul to Pyongyang.

According to the Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung, the South Korean side will deliver optical cables and other communication equipment to the DPRK side on Wednesday and Thursday.

The two Koreas will respectively carry out the line upgrades at their sides and later connect them at the military demarcation line, and the operation would be completed before the severely cold season comes, Seoul's officials said earlier.

The upgrade project was tentatively agreed between the two sides in 2007, but was deferred after their relations soured following the inauguration of Seoul's Lee Myung-bak administration in early 2008.

The military line near the East Sea is the main inter-Korean communication channel used in exchanging lists of people who travel in and out of the Kaesong industrial complex in the DPRK.