Seoul hopes to resume reunions of separated family members

South Korea will seek discussions on reunions of separated families at this week’s inter-Korean talks, Seoul’s unification minister said yesterday.

The two Koreas agreed last week to hold their first official dialogue in more than two years and will meet today at the border 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 bring up other issues.

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

The two Koreas remain at war because the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than formal peace.

Tensions soared last year as the North made rapid progress on its banned weapons programmes, launching ballistic missiles it said were capable of reaching the US 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 has stopped condemning the South and instead called for “independent reunification” without relying on other countries such as the US.

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

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

But Kim Yong-hyun, a political science professor at Dongguk University, warned that the talks would “become difficult if North Korea makes unreasonable demands”.

US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said there was “no turnaround” in the US stance, reiterating that the North must stop nuclear tests for talks with Washington.

Divided families are one of the most emotive legacies of the Korean War, which led to the peninsula being formally partitioned in 1953. About 60,000 elderly South Koreans still hope to meet their relatives again.

The last round of reunions were held in 2015 and the number of divided family members is dwindling.

North Korean officials have said they will not consider further reunions unless several of its citizens are returned by the South.

Despite war of words between leaders of the North and US, Trump still hopes to join in talks between the Koreas