Conflict’s human cost

Reunions show separated Korean families’ pain

Imagine being forcibly separated from your parents, your children, your siblings, for more than 60 years. Now imagine that for most of that time you worried that your country and their country were constantly on the verge of war.

In a North Korean “resort” community recently, the rogue nation permitted reunions for about 330 South Koreans from roughly 90 families who have been separated since the end of the Korean War from their relatives trapped in North Korea. About 185 North Koreans were allowed to visit with their South Korean relatives during an 11-hour reunion that was filled with tears.

Such reunions have happened on rare occasions in recent years, usually when relations between the typically hostile neighbors thaw a bit. Such is the climate right now.

That means that Koreans on both sides of the heavily militarized border — many of whom are elderly — have what may be the only chance they’ve ever been granted to reconnect with long-lost loved ones.

News coverage of the reunions is excruciating to read and watch. Many relatives are reduced to speechless sobbing, grateful to have just a brief chance to hug and know their family members again while also understanding they may never have the chance again.

These painful reunions are another reminder of the stakes in Korean diplomacy.

Though we in the United States often focus on global security and what improved relations between the West and North Korea mean to the West, these reunions illustrate why the U.S., our allies and the two Koreas must continue to keep pursuing long-term stable peaceful relations.

North Korean foreign policy has frustrated successive American presidential administrations. The Kim Jong Un regime — like that of his father and grandfather before him — has confounded the West and stubbornly pursued strategies aimed only at keeping a grip on power, not better relations with the wider world.

The Trump administration’s unorthodox strategies have raised eyebrows. Critics have scolded the president’s tactics with North Korea.

But the recent family reunions offer a glimmer of hope that relations between North and South Korea are relatively good — at least for the moment. The U.S. and its allies should collaborate on strategies to further the progress already made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The cost of hostile relations between North Korea and the rest of the world includes real, human misery. Solving the diplomatic puzzle on the Korean Peninsula is well worth the effort.