Help us reunite families, S Korea asks North
Talks will focus on Winter Olympics participation, but military and social issues could be on agenda
SOUTH Korea wants the reunification of families divided since the end of the Korean War to be on the agenda when its diplomats meet their North Korean counterparts at Panmunjom tomorrow morning. Cho Myoung-gyon, South Korea’s unification minister, said yesterday that Seoul also hopes to be able to explore ways of reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula when the two sides meet to discuss arrangements for North Korean athletes to take part in the forthcoming Winter Olympic Games.
“We will listen to what North Korea will say,” Mr Cho told reporters in Seoul. “We will make efforts to enable the North to take part in the games.”
“Basically, the two sides will focus on the Olympics,” Yonhap news quoted Mr Cho as saying. “When discussing interkorean relations, the government will seek to raise the issue of war-torn families and ways to ease military tensions.”
Mr Cho will head the five-strong South Korean delegation taking part in the talks, which are scheduled to start at 10am local time in one of the huts that sit astride the North-south border at Panmunjom and have been the scene of countless discussions since an armistice was signed to halt the three-year Korean War. The talks will be the first direct dialogue between the two governments since December 2015. Reuniting families who have been separated for more than 60 years has been a regular request from successive governments in the South.
Since August 2000, South Koreans have been able to travel to the North to meet their relatives on more than 20 occasions, although deteriorating ties between Pyongyang and successive and more hard-line conservative governments in the South have meant that the last meeting was in February 2014. The North Korean delegation will be headed by Ri Son-gwon, chairman of the state-run Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea.
He has overseen cross-border military talks since 2006 and is considered to be a key adviser to Kim Yong-chol, vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party.
North Korean state media has hinted at Pyongyang’s priorities going into the talks, with the Korea Central News Agency reporting: “The entire process of North-south relations shows that efforts to improve bilateral ties can come to fruition only when the two sides work together based upon cooperation among Korean people.”
“The will to enhance North-south relations must be backed up not by words, but by practical actions to foster inter-korean reconciliation and unity, and reunification,” it added.
Polls in South Korea have suggested that three quarters of the population are in favour of North Korean athletes taking part in the Winter Olympics, which are due to start in the city of Pyeongchang on Feb 9.