Russian president calls for cooperation with two Koreas in gas pipeline, railway projects

SEOUL, Aug. 15 (Yonhap) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in a message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Monday that Moscow wants to cooperate with the two Koreas to move forward a project to build a gas pipeline and a railway linking the three countries. Building a gas pipeline across the two divided Korean states has long been a coveted project of Russia to sell its Siberian gas to South Korea. Talk of a project to connect the Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR) and the Trans-Korean Railway (TKR) has also been underway. But security tensions have hampered the projects. "We have willingness to boost cooperation with the DPRK in all directions of mutual concern, including a three-party plan encompassing Russia, the DPRK and the Republic of Korea in the fields of gasification, energy and railway construction," Medvedev said in the message. "They will be of important economic significance and contribute to stabilizing the situation in Northeast Asia and denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula," he said, according to Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency. DPRK stands for the North's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, while the Republic of Korea is the South's formal name. Medvedev sent the message to congratulate the North on the occasion of Korea's liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule. Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after talks with his South Korean counterpart that Moscow is in talks with North Korea to build a pipeline across the inter-Korean border to supply Siberian gas to South Korea.