Seoul seeks to discuss family reunions with Pyongyang

SEOul: South Korea will seek discussions on resuming reunions of separated families at this week’s inter-Korean talks, as the North trumpets the importance of achieving reunification.

The two Koreas agreed last week to hold their first official dialogue in more than two years and will meet today in 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 Myounggyon told reporters yesterday, the Yonhap news agency reported.

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

Tensions soared last year as the North made rapid progress on its banned weapons programmes, launching ballistic missiles it said can reach the United States and carrying out its sixth nuclear test, by far its most powerful.

Their tentative rapprochement comes after North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un warned in his New Year speech that 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 after being suspended for almost two years.

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

“The master of improved interKorean relations is not the outsiders but the Korean nation itself,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency said over the weekend.