Inside the DMZ ahead of the Winter Olympics

Yet in the South Korean capital Seoul, just 35 miles from the border, both sides seem united in their cynicism over intimations by the IOC president Thomas Bach that the Games can represent the first step towards peace and, ultimately, unification.

Physically, the nations remain split by the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a four-mile wide stretch of no-man’s land littered with over two million landmines. Press Association Sport took a tour to discover if Olympic detente had reached the border.

Coach trips depart Seoul for the DMZ almost daily. Passports are required, and the tours are not open to South Korean citizens.

On the South Korean side of the line, displays about the Korean War, which cost three million lives and led to a tensely-brokered partition, jostle for space with souvenir stalls selling DMZ chocolates, camouflage-clad action men, and fridge magnets.

The trip stops first at the Third Tunnel of Aggression, one of a series of tunnels dug by the North in an attempt to infiltrate the South following partition.

The Third Tunnel – at which photography is strictly prohibited – ran almost 1,500 feet under the South’s side of the DMZ, and was only discovered following a tip-off by a North Korean defector in 1978.

From the Dora Observatory, one can peer through telescopes into North Korea – and be peered at back from numerous Northern guard posts. Its hillsides are stripped bare of trees as a consequence of the desperate famine or as the North describe it, the ‘Arduous March’ of the mid-1990s.

The uneasy silence is punctuated only by bird song – the DMZ has become a haven for rare plants and wildlife – and wafts of propaganda music blasting from the speakers at Kijong-dong. The village cowers beneath a 100m flag-pole from which flutters the red, blue and white flag of the Democratic People’s Republic.

Dorasan Station is the northernmost of South Korea’s stations, situated on the edge of the DMZ, and very much the end of the line. Although the tracks to the North had been open until as recently as 2013 for the carriage of cargo, they are now closed due to increased tensions.

These days, the only arrivals in Dorasan are three trains per day which carry tourists on a dead-end day trip from Seoul.

Access to the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the village of Panmunjom is only granted upon signing a waiver which acknowledges “the possibility of injury or death”. Just yards from the strictly-controlled tourist huddle is the ditch in which a North Korean defector hid after making a daring bid to escape as recently as November.

Conceived as neutral ground, the JSA itself was divided by a demarcation line after the killing of two US Army officers in 1976. South Korean soldiers stand guard facing northwards, while forces – and tourists – are scrutinised from a watch-tower on the North Korean side.

A line of bright blue meeting rooms – though in reality, they are rarely if ever used – straddle the demarcation line, giving tourists the chance to step across the other side of the room and literally set foot in North Korea.

They do so under the imperturbable gaze of South Korean soldiers. The palpable tension of the situation is mitigated as tourists pose with the soldiers for photographs.

Departing through the strictly-controlled DMZ Zones, past the Bridge of No Return, which was used for prisoner exchanges in 1953, the tour buses return to Seoul. North Korean hills remain visible for a time across the frozen Han River.

Within an hour, the tour trips are back in the shimmering neon capital of Seoul, from which it is all too easy to consign the prospect of war to a distant and touristic after-thought. Unfortunately for Thomas Bach and his best-laid plans, the prospect of peace and unification appears equally unlikely.