Trains will start running again on cross-border Korean railways for the first time in more than five decades.

In a radio interview on Saturday, Vice Finance Minister, Kim Kwang-rim, said that South and North Korea will start trial runs on some sections of the Gyeongui Line and Donghae Line within this year.

Kim headed the South Korean delegation to the four-day South-North economic talks that ended in Seoul on Friday.

South and North Korea have been working on a project to re-connect the two sets of railways and adjacent roads as part of agreements signed at the June 2000 inter-Korean summit.

The railways have remained severed since shortly before the Korean War in 1950.