Koreas to meet over family reunions, humanitarian aid

By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Oct. 16 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean delegation headed for North Korea on
Friday to discuss cross-border family reunions and humanitarian aid, the latest
in a series of inter-Korean meetings to defrost ties between the two sides.
North Korea agreed earlier this week to the one-day working-level meeting in
Kaesong, just north of the border, while it also test-fired short-range missiles
and warned of a naval clash in the Yellow Sea. The two-track diplomacy came as
the North, currently under U.N. sanctions over its nuclear test in May, was
pushing the South to resume profitable tourism projects and humanitarian aid to
the country.
In the meeting arranged by Red Cross offices from both sides, South Korea will
propose holding new rounds of reunions for families separated by the 1950-53
Korean War next month and again on the occasion of the Lunar New Year's Day in
February. North Korea is expected to raise the issues of rice and fertilizer aid
and the suspended tour programs to its Mount Kumgang resort and Kaesong, the
meeting venue and an ancient capital, Seoul officials say.
"Various issues will be put to discussion in the Red Cross meeting tomorrow, and
we have to see (the results)," Unification Minister Hyun In-taek told reporters
on Thursday when asked whether Seoul has any plan to resume rice aid after the
talks. "We will decide, depending on the developments," he said.
Hyun's remarks suggested a somewhat softened position by Seoul on
government-level assistance, which stopped after President Lee Myung-bak took
office last year, linking inter-Korean exchanges to Pyongyang's denuclearization.
South Korea suspended Mount Kumgang tours in July last year after a tourist was
shot dead by a North Korean soldier in an off-limits military zone beside the
resort.
Seoul sent two working-level officials -- Kim Eyi-do, senior policy cooperation
officer at the Unification Ministry, and Kim Sung-geun from the Red Cross -- to
the talks expected to start at 10 a.m. The delegation will drive to Kaesong
through the military demarcation line.
Kim said, before departure, that he hopes to "make achievements in the separated
family issue and other humanitarian issues." He said Seoul will also press the
North to allow South Korean prisoners of war and fishermen believed to be
kidnapped by the North in the Cold War to meet their remaining families in the
South.
The latest round of family reunions, held in late September, was the first in
nearly two years.
In a rare gesture to patch up frayed ties with the South, North Korea apologized
Wednesday for the deaths of six South Koreans who were swept away by a flash
flood after the North abruptly opened a dam last month.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)