North and South Korea agree to negotiations on family reunification
Seoul (AsiaNews / Agencies) - South Korea has accepted Pyongyang’s proposal for new negotiations on humanitarian issues after a period of tensions on the peninsula. Topics will include the reunification of families divided between North and South as well as joint industrial and tourism projects.
The decision was reached today during a meeting between military leaders of the two Koreas. Originally it was to last only one day, yesterday, but is still ongoing. The military talks are the first since the North bombed an island in the South in November, killing four people. Last year a Southern warship was destroyed by a missile from the North, but Pyongyang has denied all responsibility.
The dates for the reunification of families will be decided at the end of the talks and will be entrusted to Red Cross representatives from both countries. Hundreds of thousands of relatives have been separated by war and border. To date at least 80 thousand people are registered in the reunification program, which began in 2000. Many of these people are now elderly and dying, every year at least 4,000 of them, without being able to see their loved ones.
Pyongyang has proposed that the ICRC also oversee progress in two projects, one in tourism at Mount Kumgang and the other industrial in Kaesong. Both are located in North Korea, managed by the South, but with staff of the North. Pyongyang needs the projects to be able to cash in on foreign currency.
The last meeting of the families took place in 2009. Since then relations between Seoul and Pyongyang have rapidly deteriorated.
For years, there has been an on-going dialogue between the two Koreas to stop Pyongyang's nuclear program, but the South has lost interest seeing the meetings as a way for the North to receive aid, without offering any concessions.
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