by Yoo Seung-ki
SEOUL, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- It was calm and serene as usual near the Imjingak Nuri Peace Park. Only migratory birds flied south on a dreary winter day across the clean, blue sky.
The typical rural scene overlapped with invisible tensions that can be felt in the park, just 7 km south of the military demarcation line that has left the Korean Peninsula divided since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with armistice.
Tourists, both local and foreign, curiously looked around the border park as it is a relatively ease place to experience the divided peninsula with no security checks required.
"The Imjingak area symbolizes waiting in grief and hope. Lots of the older generation went through pain and sorrow (with this place), but I hope that the next generation overcome it," Sohn Kyung, a woman in her 60s from the capital Seoul, said in an interview with Xinhua.
Sohn quietly gazed toward the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) although she was unable to catch the sight of the DPRK territory from an observatory on the top of a four-story building inside the park.
While she looked toward the DPRK, she imagined how people there live and how they think in daily lives. She said all relevant parties for the Korean Peninsula peace should forget all of the previous bad feelings and sincerely tackle the peace process with having in mind what would be good for the next generation.
The Imjingak park is located just outside of the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a 250-km-long, 4-km-wide strip of no man's land created after the end of the Korean War.
The DMZ has long been a symbol of both confrontation and peace as tensions or rapprochement across the inter-Korean border can be felt firsthand.
The number of tourists visiting the park increased since the peninsula peace process began with the summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un in April last year.
It was followed by the first DPRK-U.S. summit in Singapore in June 2018 between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump, who agreed to the complete denuclearization of and the permanent peace settlement on the peninsula.
"Since the inter-Korean summit was held on April 27, 2018, the number of both local and foreign tourists to Imjingak has been on the rise," Chung Joo-hyun, head of the facilities management division at Gyeonggi Tourism Organization, told Xinhua.
In 2018, the number of travelers to the Imjingak park was about 280,000, a quarter of whom was foreigners. It was estimated to have logged the similar level this year, but given the outbreak of the African swine fever in the province in September, the number of visitors can be seen as having risen significantly this year, Chung noted.
Amid the rising number of visitors and a higher attention to the Imjingak area, the Gyeonggi provincial government raised budget allocated for the border park. New buildings are under construction and renovations are underway inside the park.
Chung said more tourists would visit the park if ties between the two Koreas and between the DPRK and the United States are improved, expressing her hope for peaceful situations on the peninsula.
The peninsula peace process, however, got deadlocked recently amid the stalled denuclearization talks between the DPRK and the United States.
Kim and Trump met again in February this year at the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, but it ended without any agreement. The two leaders had an impromptu meeting in June at the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom, agreeing to resume working-level talks.
The working-level denuclearization dialogue between the two sides was held in Stockholm in October, but it ended without progress. Pyongyang set its deadline for the denuclearization negotiations at the end of this year.
"The dialogue (between the DPRK and the United States) is being stalled now... But tensions have been de-escalated around the DMZ thanks to the inter-Korean agreement. I still believe that inter-Korean relations will get much better," said a 55-year-old who identified herself only with her surname Kim.
She said it was her second visit to the park since she toured the Imjingak area in the 1990s, when she put a message of wishing for reunification of the two Koreas on the barbed wire, set up along the gateway to Freedom Bridge.
The Freedom Bridge is a barricaded bridge through which a number of prisoners returned home at the end of the Korean War. On the way to the bridge sits a war-ravaged steam locomotive that was derailed by bombs during the devastating war.
"I come here the second time, and I feel more comfortable. My expectation rose to enjoy the delight of reunification," said the lady.
Her 27-year-old son, who identified himself with his surname Park, thought differently. He said a possibility for the reunification seemed low given the DPRK's "important tests" at Sohae Satellite Launching Ground on Dec. 7 and 13.
The launching ground, located in the DPRK's northwestern coastal town of Tongchang-ri, is a place where Pyongyang launched satellite-carrying long-range rockets. The launch was regarded by Washington as a disguised test of long-range ballistic missiles.
The young man, however, did not give up his hope for the peninsula peace process, saying the denuclearization talks would go well according to the wishes of many people, though it would take time to bear fruits.
