The reunion -- suspended for almost two years -- has been tentatively set for Chuseok, a traditional Korean holiday falling on Oct. 3 this year.
A South Korean delegation will be traveling to a hotel in North Korea's Mount Geumgang resort today for the meeting with their counterparts, according to Chun Hae-sung, spokesman for the Unification Ministry here.
The talks will mostly center on determining the number of participating families and also other related procedures, he said.
The North communicated its decision via a hotline at the truce village of Panmunjeom a week after Seoul attempted to follow up on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's agreement to reunite families that were separated in the aftermath of the 1950-53 Korean War.
The Red Cross hotline, which had been severed under frayed inter-Korean ties, appears to have been permanently normalized, according to the Unification Ministry.
"The Red Cross talks, although perhaps not central to inter-Korean relations, will definitely help grease the wheels," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies here.
He added that further high-level dialogue -- which he predicted to be imminent -- are necessary to touch on the more critical issues between the two Koreas, such as humanitarian aid.
"The Red Cross talks will be strictly limited to the reunions," Yang said.
The meeting -- the first of its kind in almost two years -- is a part of the series of signals North Korea has been transmitting to indicate its willingness to recover estranged ties with Seoul.
Reunions between the divided families of the two Koreas started following the landmark summit between late former President Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il in 2000.
Arranged by the Red Cross, the most recent round of reunions occurred in October 2007.
They were left suspended since then after relations between Seoul and Pyongyang languished under President Lee Myung-bak whose North Korean policies have demanded more reciprocity from Pyongyang.
The North further exacerbated the situation by executing a controversial rocket launch and conducting its second nuclear test -- all during this past year.
The tension seemed to subside after Pyongyang and Washington leaned toward mending fences starting in late July, with both sides now open for talks.
"The North knows it needs the South to better its ties with the United States," Professor Yang pointed out.
President Lee Myung-bak made similar remarks when a North Korean delegation arrived here last week for a rare visit to pay their respects to former president Kim Dae-jung.
So far, the Koreas have conducted 16 rounds of face-to-face reunions and seven rounds of video reunions to temporarily reunite over 23,000 South Koreans and around 12,500 North Koreans.
About 600,000 South Koreans reportedly have relatives north of the border.
Kim Jong-il, during a meeting with Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun earlier this month, agreed to five clauses for resuscitating inter-Korean business collaboration including the family reunions.
Hyundai, the operator of key projects, suffered financial troubles after the tours to Mount Geumgang were shut down by the South Korean government following the death of a South Korean tourist who was shot down by a North Korean soldier in the resort.
The Gaeseong Industrial Complex also came under strain with South Korean companies becoming jittery on security concerns that were exacerbated when Pyongyang issued hefty monetary demands for providing land and workers for the complex.
Seoul is likely to give the green light for agreements between Hyundai and the North, especially since Washington expressed its willingness to accept the two projects via Philip Goldberg, its key coordinator on the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874.
Goldberg on Monday told reporters here that the projects will unlikely "impede" the implementation of the resolution, which was designed to repress the North with stringent sanctions for its second nuclear test.
But both Seoul and Washington continue to underscore their unwavering commitment to achieve complete and irreversible denuclearization of the North, indicating their determination not to repeat past mistakes by granting Pyongyang talks and easing sanctions too soon.
(jemmie@heraldm.com)
By Kim Ji-hyun
2009.08.26
No comments:
Post a Comment