Two clergymen from the World Council of Churches blessed the voyage at the Brandenburg Gate. The train will stop in Moscow, Irkutsk and Beijing, and hopefully pass through Pyongyang. It is set to arrive on 28 October in Busan, South Korea.

Berlin (AsiaNews) - The Train for peace and reunification in Korea left Berlin yesterday. An initiative of the World Council of Churches, its goal is to bring the world's attention on the "absolute necessity" to bring peace to the Korean peninsula.

Rev Cho Hyun-jung, from Korea, and Rev Christophe Taileman, from Germany (pictured), blessed the voyage at the Brandenburg Gate and then got on the train.

The trip includes several stops and is set to end on 28 October in Busan, South Korea. In between, the train will stop in Moscow, Irkutsk, Beijing, and perhaps Pyongyang.

If North Korean authorities do not allow the train carrying praying Christian volunteers to enter North Korean territory, the National Council of Churches plans to book a ship from Dandong (in China) to Incheon.

The National Council of Churches is one of the few organisations that, together with the Catholic Church and the Red Cross, still manages to have humanitarian relations with Kim Jong-un's regime.

Whilst recognising the need for dialogue, the Council in recent years has launched several campaigns, like dropping anti-regime leaflets from balloons, which have undermined relations between Seoul and Pyongyang.

 

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