
 
 By Chung Min-uck 
 
 The two Koreas agreed Wednesday to hold family reunions on Feb. 20-25 at Mt. Geumgang, a scenic resort in North Korea. 
 
 
 
 The schedule for the reunions of families separated by the Korean War (1950-53) — which will be the first since October 2010 — was finalized after the South accepted a proposal by the North at a meeting in the truce village of Panmunjeom. 
 
 
 
 The timing is likely to coincide with the start of joint ROK-U.S. war games, triggering speculation that the North may use the meetings as a way to promote its claim that the two allies are preparing for an invasion. 
 
 
 
 Around 100 individuals from South Korea will participate in the family reunions and will stay at the North's Mt. Geumgang Hotel during their six-day visit, as Seoul requested, the Ministry of Unification said. 
 
 
 
 Officials here will be dispatched to the North on Friday for inspection purposes, added the ministry. 
 
 
 
 "The two sides have also decided to discuss — after the family reunions — other humanitarian issues, including the returning of South Koreans who were kidnapped by the North," the ministry said. 
 
 
 
 Experts say the family reunions are expected to serve as a cornerstone in improving the current conflict-ridden South-North relations. 
 
 
 
 North Korea's chief delegate to the working-level Red Cross talks, Pak Yong-il, said that the latest gathering "is a very important starting point in improving North-South relations," according to the ministry. 
 
 
 
 In response, South Korean chief delegate, Lee Duck-hang, called for "more mutual efforts to build trust between the South and North." 
 
 
 
 Setting dates for the reunions was one of the major sticking points in negotiations. 
 
 
 
 Seoul earlier proposed launching the reunions Feb. 17, but Pyongyang rejected the idea. It instead called for a cancellation of Seoul's annual joint military exercises with Washington, dubbed Foal Eagle and Key Resolve. 
 
 
 
 But the allies refused to do so, saying that their exercises were defensive in nature. 
 
 
 
 The joint drills kick off later this month and are likely to overlap with the upcoming reunions. 
 
 
 
 Family reunions are an urgent issue because most of the separated Koreans are in their 70s and 80s. 
 
 
 
 The two Koreas have held 18 reunions since 2000, but they were halted in 2010 after relations soured in the wake of North Korea's deadly attack on a South Korean warship and an island. 
 
 
 
 Last year, the sides agreed to hold family reunions at Mt. Geumgang, but Pyongyang abruptly called them off at the last minute. 
 
 
 
 Over 20,000 separated family members here have met their relatives, but there are around 70,000 South Koreans registered to participate in the program. 
 
 
 
 ||||| 2014/02/05 16:25 
 
 By Kim Kwang-tae 
 
 SEOUL, Feb. 5 (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea agreed Wednesday to stage a new round of reunions later this month for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, an official said, a move that could help ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula. 
 
 The reunions -- the first since October 2010 -- will be held at Mount Kumgang, a scenic resort on North Korea's east coast, from Feb. 20 to 25, according to the text of an agreement reached at their Red Cross talks. 
 
 The deal is the first sign of progress in improving inter-Korean relations that have worsened due to the North's military threats against the South in recent months. 
 
 North Korea's chief delegate Pak Yong-Il said that the Red Cross meeting "is a very important starting point for improving the North-South relations." 
 
 
 
 Pak made the comments at the beginning of the meeting at the border village of Panmunjom, according to a brief audio file released by the unification ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs. 
 
 The planned reunions coincide with South Korea's annual joint military exercises with Washington, which are set to run from late February through April. 
 
 North Korea has pressed South Korea to scrap the drills, condemning them as a rehearsal for a nuclear war against it. Seoul and Washington have vowed to go ahead with the exercises, calling them defensive in nature. 
 
 About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War. 
 
 The North had indictated that the reunions could not be held "amid gunfire," referring to the military drills. 
 
 The North mentioned the joint military exercises and its recent conciliatory overture at the border talks, though it did not attach a condition for the family reunions, said the unification ministry official, requesting anonymity. 
 
 Last month, the North offered a series of conciliatory gestures that called for the cancellation of the joint military drills. It also proposed halting all slander and all hostile military acts between the two Koreas. 
 
 South Korea had rejected the North's overture as a "deceptive" ploy. 
 
 On Wednesday, South Korea said it can discuss other issues with North Korea if the reunions go well. 
 
 The sides also agreed to hold Red Cross talks after the reunions to resolve humanitarian issues, in an apparent reference to South Korean prisoners of war and abductees being held in the communist country, as well as Seoul's food aid to the North. 
 
 South Korea has repeatedly called on the North to hold the reunions, calling them a first step toward improving inter-Korean relations. 
 
 Last year, the sides agreed to hold family reunions at Mount Kumgang, but Pyongyang abruptly called them off at the last minute. 
 
 Family reunions are a highly emotional issue on the divided peninsula, as most of the separated family members are in their 70s and 80s, and wish to see their long-lost relatives before they die. 
 
 There are no direct means of contact between ordinary civilians of the two countries that remain divided by a heavily fortified border. 
 
 The divided Koreas have held more than a dozen rounds of reunions since their landmark summit in 2000, bringing together more than 21,700 family members who had not seen each other since the Korean War. 
 
 entropy@yna.co.kr 
 
 (END) ||||| North and South Korea agreed yesterday to hold a reunion later this month for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War - the first such event for more than three years. 
 
 Officials from both sides, meeting in the border truce village of Panmunjom, decided the reunion would be held from February 20-25 at the North's Mount Kumgang resort, the South's Unification Ministry said. 
 
 The agreement marks a small sign of progress between the two rivals who, in recent years, have struggled to co-operate on even the most basic trust-building measures. However, both sides have been here before. 
 
 The two Koreas had agreed to hold a reunion last September but, even as the chosen relatives prepared to make their way to Mount Kumgang, Pyongyang cancelled the event just four days before its scheduled start, citing "hostility" from the South. 
 
 And there are widespread concerns that the families could end up being disappointed again this time around. 
 
 South Korea is due to begin joint military exercises with the United States at the end of February, and North Korea has warned of dire consequences should they go ahead. 
 
 The annual drills are always a diplomatic flashpoint on the Korean peninsula, and last year resulted in an unusually extended period of heightened military tension. 
 
 Yoo Ho-yeol, professor of North Korean Studies at Seoul's Korea University, predicted that the North would use the reunion as a bargaining chip. 
 
 "Rather than cancelling the event again, it may try to extract concessions, like a scaling down of the joint military exercises, or an easing of South Korean sanctions," Yoo said. 
 
 Millions of Koreans were separated by the war, and the vast majority have since died without having any communication at all with surviving relatives. 
 
 Because the Korean conflict concluded with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, the two Koreas technically remain at war and direct exchanges of letters or telephone calls are prohibited. 
 
 Up to 73,000 South Koreans are on a waiting list for a chance to take part in one of the reunion events, which select only a few hundred participants at a time. 
 
 The reunion programme began in earnest in 2000 following an historic inter-Korean summit. Sporadic events since then have seen around 17,000 relatives briefly reunited. But the programme was suspended in 2010 following the North's shelling of a South Korean border island. 
 
 Pyongyang is also pushing for a resumption of six-party talks on its nuclear programme - a long-stalled process involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. 
 
 Since the beginning of the year, North Korea has been on a charm offensive, making a series of conciliatory gestures that critics have largely dismissed.
– The two Koreas today gave the green light to the first family reunions since October 2010. The meetings of select families from the North and South—who have had no communication since the 1950-'53 Korean War—will occur Feb. 20 to 25 at Mount Kumgang, described by Yonhap News as a "scenic resort" in North Korea. That timing will likely overlap with the start of the South's annual joint military exercises with the US. And, as Australia's ABC News notes, "both sides have been here before." Agreed-upon reunions scheduled for last September were scrapped by Pyongyang four days before they were due to begin over the South's "hostility." North Korea has urged Seoul to cancel the drills, painting them as a dry-run for a war against Pyongyang; Seoul has declined to do so. "The drills have been conducted annually and they simply cannot be an issue for us as far as the reunions are concerned," a South Korean official tells the South China Morning Post. Roughly 100 South Koreans are expected to participate, though 70,000 are looking to do so. The Post notes that in past reunions, a few hundred people have had "fleeting moments" together; though about 22,000 Koreans have had reunions, there has never been a second meeting for any of them.