U.S. pushes to work with N. Korea to link separated families

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 (Yonhap) -- The United States said Monday it was willing to make joint efforts with North Korea to allow communication between families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, an initiative seen as capitalizing on the recent resumption of high-level talks between the two sides.
"The United States remains concerned about the issue of Korean-Americans separated from their family members in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) since the end of the Korean War," the State Department said in a late-evening statement. "We continue to do all that we can to raise this issue in relevant fora."
It added, "We regularly meet with the American Red Cross to discuss possibilities and modalities to reconnect Korean-Americans with relatives in the DPRK." The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.
Around 100,000 ethnic Koreans here have kin in the reclusive communist nation, according to an estimate.
A news report said earlier that Pyongyang and Washington agreed to the exchange of letters between separated Korean families living in the two nations.
Robert King, U.S. special envoy for North Korea human rights, attended talks with a North Korean delegation, led by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, in late July in New York.
The first talks between the North and the U.S. in 19 months were aimed mainly at discussing the resumption of multilateral denuclearization talks.
The State Department did not directly confirm whether an agreement on separated families is already in place