Koreas fail to agree on more reunions

Koreas fail to agree on more reunions

The inter-Korean Red Cross talks ended yesterday as the two sides failed to reach an agreement on Seoul's proposal to hold more cross-border reunion events for separated families.

"We suggested holding family reunions in Seoul and Pyongyang in November, and again on Lunar New Year's Day (in February) at the Mount Geumgang resort, and repeatedly stressed the importance of making them a regular event," said a Unification Ministry official on condition of anonymity.

"The North did not deny the need for more family reunions but did not show any positive response either."

As expected earlier, North Korea renewed its request for humanitarian aid from the South.

"The North requested humanitarian aid, without mentioning the specific items or amount, and the South's delegation said they would review it in Seoul," the official said.

"The two sides did not get to decide when to meet for follow-up talks."

The South also suggested discussing measures to resolve the issue of South Korean prisoners of war and civilians including fishermen held in the North, to which the North did not respond.

Two South Korean Red Cross officials Kim Eui-do and Kim Sung-keun sat for the working-level talks with their North Korean counterparts in Gaeseong, just north of the border.

The meeting was constantly adjourned and resumed throughout the day until 6:30 p.m. as the two sides struggled to bridge the gap.

The talks started at 10 a.m. and were adjourned 40 minutes later, resumed at 3 p.m. only to last for another 40 minutes.

Two more shorter meetings took place at 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

Despite the North's request for rice aid on the sidelines of the previous round of family reunions late last month, Seoul has said that it had no plans to send large amounts of aid like it had under former administrations.

The government has told South Korean media, however, that it could provide aid in much smaller amounts.

The South had shipped around 300,000 tons of fertilizer to the North tacitly in exchange for allowing its people to temporary meetings with their kin across the border under former presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun.

North Korea agreed to the working-level meeting a day after the South proposed it on Monday and in the mean time test-fired short-range missiles and warned of a naval clash in the Yellow Sea. The so-called "two-track" diplomacy came as the North, currently under U.N. sanctions over its nuclear and missile tests in April, was pushing the South to resume profitable tourism projects and humanitarian aid to the country.

(sophie@heraldm.com)

By Kim So-hyun

2009.10.17

North Korea invites U.S. envoy for talks: report

North Korea invites U.S. envoy for talks: report

Fri Oct 16, 2009 7:38am EDT

(Reuters) - North Korea has renewed an invitation to U.S. special envoy Stephen Bosworth to visit Pyongyang, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported, in a signal that it wants to return to nuclear talks, albeit on Pyongyang's terms.

The impoverished North also made a rare request to South Korea for humanitarian aid at a meeting of their Red Cross societies on Friday.

South Korea, once a major donor of aid for the North, said it would consider resuming food aid afterwards, the South's Yonhap News reported, citing a source.

U.S. evangelist Franklin Graham, who was in North Korea this week to organize food aid, told Kyodo that Pyongyang was very positive about holding talks with Washington.

"The invitation has been extended," Graham, who heads the U.S. aid organization Samaritan's Purse, said, quoting a North Korean official.

The North has had longstanding ties with the Graham family, including Graham's father, evangelist Billy Graham. The family has led several food aid missions from Christian charities for the impoverished state.

Kyodo said Graham met North Korean officials including Kim Kye Gwan, its envoy to the dormant six-party nuclear talks.

"I think they are very positive" about holding talks with the United States, Graham said.

The report coincided with further mixed signals from the North, promising to return to the talks on ending its nuclear program while raising regional tension by launching short-range missiles and accusing South Korean ships of entering its waters.

The talks involve the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia.

The North has previously invited Bosworth to Pyongyang for talks. U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has neither accepted the proposal nor ruled it out.

At Friday's Red Cross meeting, the two Koreas discussed having another round of reunions for families split by the 1950-53 Korean War and possibly resuming food aid, but failed to bridge differences, according to Yonhap.

North Korea does not produce enough food to feed its 23 million people and had been seeking a resumption of South Korean aid in return for holding more reunions.

The two Koreas held their first family reunions in nearly two years at the end of September.

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota in TOKYO and Jon Herskovitz in SEOUL; Editing by Ron Popeski)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

S Korea wants more family reunions

S Korea wants more family reunions

Seoul - South Korea said on Thursday it would press North Korea at upcoming talks to hold more reunions of families separated for decades by barbed wire and minefields.

Red Cross officials from the two Koreas will on Friday hold one-day talks in the town of Kaesong, just north of the border, to discuss the issue.

"When it comes to the family reunions, the government has said many times that it will make utmost efforts to arrange a next round of family reunions at an early date," said unification ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-Joo.

"We will engage in the talks from such a standpoint."

As part of recent peace overtures to the South, the communist North last month resumed the reunion programme after a lapse of two years.

Hundreds of people held tearful meetings at the North's Mount Kumgang resort for the first time since the 1950-1953 war.

The programme began in earnest after the first cross-border summit in 2000 eased tensions between the historical enemies.

More than 16,000 Koreans from both sides have held face-to-face meetings since then, while 3,200 others have communicated through video links.

But tens of thousands are still waiting for a chance to meet long-lost loved ones, and many die of old age before they get the opportunity.

Seoul wants family reunions to be held on a regular, not a one-off, basis.

Friday's talks will be watched to see whether the North is seeking food aid in return for reunions. Seoul's Red Cross chief Yoo Chong-Ha has said such a request was implicitly made during the previous programme from September 26-October 1.

South Korea's position is that the two issues should not be linked. - Sapa-AFP

Published on the Web by IOL on 2009-10-15 06:46:42

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