Separated Korean families meet in first reunion event in two years

MOUNT KUMGANG, North Korea, Sept. 26 (Yonhap) -- Hundreds of South and North Korean relatives met here on Saturday in the first government-arranged reunions in two years, one of the most visible reconciliatory steps between the two sides after protracted tensions on the peninsula.

Ninety-six elderly South Koreans traveled across the Demilitarized Zone earlier
in the day to meet family members separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, at the
Mount Kumgang resort on North Korea's east coast, according to pool reports. More
than three-quarters of the participants were 70 or older.
"It's been almost sixty years. I am happy and also confused," Kim Un-seon, 86,
said prior to leaving for the venue at the South's eastern city of Sokcho.
About 600,000 people in the South are believed to have family in the North. The
first round of cross-border reunions was held in 1985, and they had become a
semi-regular event since 2000 after a historic inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang.
They were halted in 2007 as inter-Korean ties began to fray.
The reunions this time, a result of a dramatic agreement last month between the
North's leader Kim Jong-il and Hyun Jeong-eun, chairwoman of South Korea's
Hyundai Group -- a major investor in the cash-strapped nation -- will be held in
two separate, three-day long, back-to-back events.
On the first day of the three-day schedule the South Koreans met their 240
relatives in the North. After a two-hour group reunion from 3 p.m. the families
were scheduled to attend a dinner hosted by North Korea.
They will hold separate, personal meetings on Sunday and the South Koreans are
scheduled to return the following day.
In the second segment of the event from next Tuesday also at the same venue, 99
North Koreans will be re-united with 449 relatives living in the South.
Candidates from the South were first selected through a computer lottery, with
the final lists being drawn from applicants whose relatives were located, giving
priority to immediate family members and the elderly.
The reunions are a highlight of the North's recent good-will gestures, which have
also included the easing of cross-border traffic to and from a South Korean-run
industrial park in Kaesong, North Korea.
Inter-Korean tensions mounted after the conservative government of President Lee
Myung-bak came to power in the South last year. Lee toughened up on the North's
nuclear drive and suspended massive aid, and in response North Korea boycotted
dialogue and suspended the family reunions.
The mood further chilled in July last year after a North Korean soldier in the
Mount Kumgang resort area shot and killed a South Korean tourist who had strayed
into an off-limits military zone.
South Korean Red Cross President Yoo Chong-ha also traveled to the North with the
South Korean families. He is expected to hold a meeting with his North Korean
counterpart, Jang Jae-on.
South Korean political parties were also united in welcoming the resumption of
the family reunion event and calling for it to be held on a regular basis.
"Whatever happens and despite any difficulty, such humanitarian exchanges should
transcend the ideological barrier," Rep. Cho Yoon-sun, spokesperson for the
ruling Grand National Party said in a commentary. "We wish the reunions will be
regularized until the day of reunification."
The main opposition Democratic Party also expressed hope in a statement that the
reunions will "serve as a decisive chance" to thaw frosty inter-Korean relations.
odissy@yna.co.kr
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