Family pitch in Korean detente

SOUTH Korea will seek discussions on resuming reunions of separated families at this week’s inter-Korean talks, Seoul’s top delegate said yesterday, as the North trumpeted the importance of achieving reunification.

The two nations agreed last week to hold their first dialogue in more than two years and will meet today at the truce village of Panmunjom.

The talks will largely focus on the North’s participation in next month’s Winter Olympics in the South, but the two sides are expected to also bring up their own issues of interest.

“We will prepare for discussions on the issue of separated families and ways to ease military tensions,” Unification Minister Cho Myoung-Gyon said.

Because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a formal peace, the two Koreas remain at war.

Tensions soared last year as the North made rapid progress on its banned weapons programs, launching ballistic missiles it said were capable of reaching the US and carrying out its sixth nuclear test.

Their tentative rapprochement comes after North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un warned he had a nuclear button on his desk, but also said Pyongyang could send a team to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Seoul responded with an offer of talks and last week the hotline between the neighbours was restored.

North Korea’s state media has stopped condemning the South and instead called for “independent reunification” without relying on other countries such as the US.

“The master of improved inter-Korean relations is not the outsiders but the Korean nation itself,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said. “The flunkeyism and idea of dependence on outside forces are the venom which makes the nation slavish and spiritless.”

US President Donald Trump said at the weekend the rare talks between the two Koreas would go “beyond the Olympics” and that Washington could join at a later stage.

Also in recent days, the US and South Korea agreed to delay annual joint military exercises until after the games, apparently to help ease nerves.

The regular joint drills have been criticised for adding to regional tensions. Beijing and Moscow have called for them to be suspended.

WE WILL PREPARE FOR DISCUSSIONS ON THE ISSUE OF SEPARATED FAMILIES AND WAYS TO EASE MILITARY TENSIONS MINISTER CHO MYOUNG-GYON