ID :
77161
Thu, 08/27/2009 - 09:34
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/77161
The shortlink copeid
Koreas agree to hold family reunions around Chuseok
By Kim Hyun
MOUNT KUMGANG, North Korea, Aug. 26 (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea agreed in rare talks Wednesday to hold reunions of separated families, the first in nearly two years, around Korea's upcoming traditional holiday of Chuseok.
The tentative agreement was reached as Red Cross officials from the Koreas began
a three-day meeting at the North's scenic Mount Kumgang resort to arrange a new
round of reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. Reunions were
stopped in late 2007 amid deteriorating political relations.
"I have great expectations for family reunions this coming Chuseok, seeing all
the Korean people and compatriots abroad welcoming the event wholeheartedly,"
Choe Song-ik, vice-chairman of the central committee of the North's Red Cross
Society and chief North Korean delegate to the talks, said in his opening
remarks.
"Mount Kumgang is Korea's special mountain, and I hope we can also produce
special results," Kim Young-chel, secretary general of the South Korean Red Cross
office, said.
Both sides agreed to select 100 people on each side and locate their relatives
living across the border so their reunions can be held around the Chuseok
holiday, which falls on Oct. 3 this year.
Specifics were yet to be hammered out. South Korea wants to hold reunions for
South Koreans looking for their North Korean relatives Sept. 27-29 and for North
Koreans looking for their relatives Oct. 6-8. North Korea wants to push the dates
to Oct. 3-5 and Oct. 6-8, respectively.
For the venue of the reunion, Seoul proposed a 12-story house it completed for
that purpose at Mount Kumgang last year, but Pyongyang insisted on the Mount
Kumgang hotel, where the talks are now held.
The Red Cross dialogue, the first in 21 months, was the latest in a series of
recent conciliatory gestures by North Korea.
On Tuesday, North Korea restored a Red Cross hotline at the truce village of
Panmunjom that it severed in November to protest the conservative Seoul
government's hard-line policy toward it.
In another major fence-mending move, North Korea dispatched a high-level
delegation last week to pay their respects to the late former South Korean
President Kim Dae-jung, who died Aug. 18. The six-member team delivered a verbal
message to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak from the nation's leader, Kim
Jong-il, wishing for "progress in inter-Korean cooperation."
North Korean media have since stopped describing Lee in derogatory terms such as
"traitor."
Officials expect a major roadblock could be the issue of Korean War prisoners and
other South Koreans believed to have been captured by the North during the Cold
War era. South Korea has pushed to include those missing citizens -- estimated at
around 1,000 -- in family reunions, while North Korea has opposed the idea.
Pyongyang insists it has held no one against their will.
"As a principle of cooperation, we proposed that both sides should work together
to resolve the issues of the people who went missing after the war," the chief
South Korean delegate told pool reporters after the talks.
Seoul also called for mail exchanges and hometown visits for all separated
families. South and North Koreans cannot communicate across the border as the war
ended in an armistice, leaving their nations technically at war. About 600,000
South Koreans are believed to have relatives in the North.
Watchers expect that family reunions, when resumed, will help resuscitate other
inter-Korean ventures, particularly a suspended South Korean tour program to the
North's Mount Kumgang resort. Seoul banned the Hyundai-run tour in July last year
after a North Korean soldier shot and killed a South Korean tourist who strayed
into an off-limits military zone. The tour business, once a cash cow for the
North, now remains a major thorn in inter-Korean relations.
"North Korea agreed to resume the family reunions, which has been South Korea's
key demand. This will lead South Korea to reciprocate," said Cho Myung-chul, a
former North Korean university professor who defected to the South in the
mid-1990s. "Also, visits to the mountain will naturally build an atmosphere that
it is okay to reactivate the tour program," said Cho, now an analyst with the
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.
Family reunions were last held in October 2007 and stopped after political
relations chilled with the inauguration last year of President Lee Myung-bak, who
linked inter-Korean relations to progress in Pyongyang's denuclearization. The
humanitarian event was initiated by the late Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il during
their historic first inter-Korean summit in 2000.
Separately, South Korea called for the release of four fishermen who have been
held in the North after their boat strayed into North Korean waters in the East
Sea July 30.
Seoul pressed for an update on the crew through the restored inter-Korean
hotline, and a North Korean liaison official responded positively, Unification
Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said.
According to former government officials, who met the visiting North Koreans last
week, the North Korean officials told them that the fishermen would be released
soon.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
MOUNT KUMGANG, North Korea, Aug. 26 (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea agreed in rare talks Wednesday to hold reunions of separated families, the first in nearly two years, around Korea's upcoming traditional holiday of Chuseok.
The tentative agreement was reached as Red Cross officials from the Koreas began
a three-day meeting at the North's scenic Mount Kumgang resort to arrange a new
round of reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. Reunions were
stopped in late 2007 amid deteriorating political relations.
"I have great expectations for family reunions this coming Chuseok, seeing all
the Korean people and compatriots abroad welcoming the event wholeheartedly,"
Choe Song-ik, vice-chairman of the central committee of the North's Red Cross
Society and chief North Korean delegate to the talks, said in his opening
remarks.
"Mount Kumgang is Korea's special mountain, and I hope we can also produce
special results," Kim Young-chel, secretary general of the South Korean Red Cross
office, said.
Both sides agreed to select 100 people on each side and locate their relatives
living across the border so their reunions can be held around the Chuseok
holiday, which falls on Oct. 3 this year.
Specifics were yet to be hammered out. South Korea wants to hold reunions for
South Koreans looking for their North Korean relatives Sept. 27-29 and for North
Koreans looking for their relatives Oct. 6-8. North Korea wants to push the dates
to Oct. 3-5 and Oct. 6-8, respectively.
For the venue of the reunion, Seoul proposed a 12-story house it completed for
that purpose at Mount Kumgang last year, but Pyongyang insisted on the Mount
Kumgang hotel, where the talks are now held.
The Red Cross dialogue, the first in 21 months, was the latest in a series of
recent conciliatory gestures by North Korea.
On Tuesday, North Korea restored a Red Cross hotline at the truce village of
Panmunjom that it severed in November to protest the conservative Seoul
government's hard-line policy toward it.
In another major fence-mending move, North Korea dispatched a high-level
delegation last week to pay their respects to the late former South Korean
President Kim Dae-jung, who died Aug. 18. The six-member team delivered a verbal
message to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak from the nation's leader, Kim
Jong-il, wishing for "progress in inter-Korean cooperation."
North Korean media have since stopped describing Lee in derogatory terms such as
"traitor."
Officials expect a major roadblock could be the issue of Korean War prisoners and
other South Koreans believed to have been captured by the North during the Cold
War era. South Korea has pushed to include those missing citizens -- estimated at
around 1,000 -- in family reunions, while North Korea has opposed the idea.
Pyongyang insists it has held no one against their will.
"As a principle of cooperation, we proposed that both sides should work together
to resolve the issues of the people who went missing after the war," the chief
South Korean delegate told pool reporters after the talks.
Seoul also called for mail exchanges and hometown visits for all separated
families. South and North Koreans cannot communicate across the border as the war
ended in an armistice, leaving their nations technically at war. About 600,000
South Koreans are believed to have relatives in the North.
Watchers expect that family reunions, when resumed, will help resuscitate other
inter-Korean ventures, particularly a suspended South Korean tour program to the
North's Mount Kumgang resort. Seoul banned the Hyundai-run tour in July last year
after a North Korean soldier shot and killed a South Korean tourist who strayed
into an off-limits military zone. The tour business, once a cash cow for the
North, now remains a major thorn in inter-Korean relations.
"North Korea agreed to resume the family reunions, which has been South Korea's
key demand. This will lead South Korea to reciprocate," said Cho Myung-chul, a
former North Korean university professor who defected to the South in the
mid-1990s. "Also, visits to the mountain will naturally build an atmosphere that
it is okay to reactivate the tour program," said Cho, now an analyst with the
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.
Family reunions were last held in October 2007 and stopped after political
relations chilled with the inauguration last year of President Lee Myung-bak, who
linked inter-Korean relations to progress in Pyongyang's denuclearization. The
humanitarian event was initiated by the late Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il during
their historic first inter-Korean summit in 2000.
Separately, South Korea called for the release of four fishermen who have been
held in the North after their boat strayed into North Korean waters in the East
Sea July 30.
Seoul pressed for an update on the crew through the restored inter-Korean
hotline, and a North Korean liaison official responded positively, Unification
Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said.
According to former government officials, who met the visiting North Koreans last
week, the North Korean officials told them that the fishermen would be released
soon.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
