S. Korea's Red Cross proposes talks with N. Korea on family reunions

SEOUL, Jan. 12 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's Red Cross chief proposed Tuesday that
his organization and its North Korean counterpart quickly hold talks on resuming
reunions of families separated by the Korean War.

"It is important to help aging people who are part of separated families to
realize their dream of reunion," Yoo Chong-ha said in an interview with Yonhap
News Agency.
"I will make my best effort to have this issue discussed even before the
governments of the two Koreas restart dialogue. The issue of family reunions is
something to be pursued separately from political and governmental talks," he
said at his Seoul office.
At a meeting arranged by the Red Cross offices of the divided countries in
October last year, Seoul and Pyongyang failed to agree on a new round of reunions
for families separated by the 1950-53 conflict, which ended in a truce rather
than a peace treaty.
The meeting came after the two countries held reunion events in the North's
mountain resort on the east coast in September for the first time in nearly two
years.
"Reunions must be held regularly and continuously," Yoo said, adding there has
been no plans for contact between the Red Cross offices of the Koreas since
October.
The Koreas agreed to hold family reunions at their historic first summit in 2000.
More than 127,000 people in the South have since signed up for the reunions, but
nearly a third of them have died. The competition is roughly 1 to 800 in being
selected for the reunions.
About 16,000 people have been reunited through face-to-face reunions so far. Some
600,000 in the South are believed to have family in the North.
The comments by Yoo come as both South and North Korea called for a turnaround in
their relations that have been frozen over the past two years. In a New Year's
Day message, North Korea said its determination to improve ties with the South
remained "unshakable," while South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called for a
turning point in the relations in his own New Year's speech delivered days later.
Yoo, who expressed hope that reunions would resume before Lunar New year's Day in
February, also called on the North to quickly respond to the South's offer of
10,000 tons of corn aid to Pyongyang.
The aid, along with 20 tons of powdered milk and some medicine, when delivered,
would be the first state-level aid to the North in nearly two years, though
amounting to only a fraction of what South Korea's previous liberal governments
gave over the past decade.
Such state-level assistance came to a halt when President Lee, a conservative,
took office in Seoul in February 2008, conditioning reconciliation on progress in
North Korea's denuclearization.
"The humanitarian assistance can be elevated to the next level as talks and
exchanges go on," Yoo said.
samkim@yna.co.kr
(END)

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