Two Koreas to hold family reunion talks for first time in 2 years

(ATTN: CORRECTS number of families reunited, ADDS N.K. media remarks toning down
attack on President Lee)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Aug. 25 (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea will hold talks this week to set
up a new round of reunions for separated families, Seoul officials said Tuesday,
the first such dialogue in nearly two years.
In another sign of thawing relations, North Korea normalized a direct
inter-Korean communications link that it suspended for months to protest Seoul's
hardline stance.
"We will discuss procedures with the North so that the talks can start tomorrow
as planned," Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said in a press
briefing.
The approval came at the last minute. Last week, Seoul proposed three-day Red
Cross talks starting Wednesday at the North's Mount Kumgang resort to discuss
setting up a new round of reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean
War.
The proposal was a follow-up to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's recent
agreement to resume the reunions and hold the first new round on the traditional
Korean holiday of Chuseok, which falls on Oct. 3 this year.
Through a Red Cross hotline at the truce village of Panmunjom, the North said it
will send a three-member delegation to the talks, Seoul officials said. The talks
are expected to set the number of families who will participate and determine
procedures for locating relatives on the other side of the border.
"We agree to your proposal, and we'd like to hold the talks at the Mount Kumgang
Hotel," the North Korean message said, according to the officials.
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 reunions were last held in October 2007 and did not continue after political
relations chilled with the inauguration of President Lee Myung-bak, who linked
inter-Korean relations to progress in Pyongyang's denuclearization.
The Koreas have so far held 16 rounds of face-to-face reunions and seven rounds
of video reunions, temporarily reuniting about 12,930 South Koreans and 7,030
North Koreans.
About 600,000 South Koreans are believed to have relatives north of the border.
Separately, North Korea has permanently normalized the Red Cross hotline,
ministry officials said.
North Korea cut off the hotline in November amid rising political tensions. The
North reconnected it last week when its delegation visited Seoul to mourn the
late former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who died Aug. 18.
North Korean Red Cross officials at Panmunjom answered calls from Seoul until the
North Korean delegation returned home Sunday, but they were again unresponsive on
Monday. On Tuesday, the North Koreans answered calls and said the hotline had
returned to normal.
"The North's side told us it has begun normal operations. We view this as the
normalization of communications between the Red Cross offices," the ministry
spokesman said.
In another noticeable move, North Korean media stopped using derogatory remarks
against the South Korean president. Their routine vitriolic reference to Lee,
"traitor," disappeared from North Korean media reports on Tuesday, and was
replaced by "president."
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)