Two Koreas to hold family reunion talks this week

(ATTN: UPDATES with quotes, background)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Aug. 25 (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea will hold talks this week on
reunions for families separated by the Korean War, Seoul officials said Tuesday,
the first such dialogue in nearly two years.
North Korea accepted South Korea's proposal to hold the three-day Red Cross talks
starting Wednesday at the North's Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast,
Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said.
Seoul made the proposal last week, following up on North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il's agreement to resume reunions of families separated by the 1950-53
Korean War.
"I still have to see the direct wording of the North Korean message, but it
virtually seems to say the North is accepting the proposal. If so, the talks can
be held tomorrow," Chun said over the telephone.
The Red Cross talks are expected mainly to set the number of participating
families and determine procedures for locating their relatives on the other side
of the border, said a South Korean Red Cross official, Song Soon-hwa. The North
Korean message was received through the direct communication channel operated by
the Red Cross at the truce village of Panmunjom, she said.
Earlier this month, the North Korean leader agreed with Hyun Jeong-eun,
chairwoman of South Korea's Hyundai Group, a major investor in the North, to
resume a string of reconciliatory measures including family reunions. The accord
suggests holding the reunions on the traditional Korean holiday of Chuseok that
falls on Oct. 3.
The reunions were suspended in late 2007 and did not resume after political
relations chilled with the inauguration of President Lee Myung-bak, who linked
inter-Korean relations to progress in Pyongyang's denuclearization.
Arranged by the Red Cross, the reunions started at the end of 2000 as an outcome
of the historic first inter-Korean summit between late former South Korean
President Kim Dae-jung and the North Korean leader earlier that year. The Koreas
have so far held 16 rounds of face-to-face reunions and seven rounds of video
reunions.
In another positive sign, North Korea has reopened direct communication with the
South through the Red Cross line after a one-day hiatus, ministry officials said.
Pyongyang restored the phone and fax line last week to communicate with a North
Korean delegation that visited Seoul to pay condolences to the late Kim, but it
did not respond to calls from Seoul on Monday after the delegation returned home.
The Red Cross channel, a key hotline between the two governments, was suspended
in November as Pyongyang protested Seoul's participation in a U.N. resolution
criticizing its human rights conditions.
The Koreas are technically at war as the Korean War ended in a cease-fire,
without a formal peace treaty.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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