At emotional Korean reunions, awkward exchanges of politics

SEOUL, South Korea — A mother wails as she embraces a son she hasn’t seen since the 1950-53 Korean War. A woman weeps as she greets a grandfather she never got to know. The scenes of Koreans meeting this week, likely for the last time before they die, are heartbreaking, but they often bely a highly political and tightly controlled event in which participants often struggle to have genuine conversations.

Much of the awkwardness centers on the the Korean Peninsula: For decades it has been divided between the authoritarian North, originally backed by the Soviet Union and then, during the war, communist China, and the U.S.-backed capitalist South.

Citizens from both nations, especially the elderly who remember the bitterness and bloodshed of the war, often wear their nationalism on their sleeves, and some South Koreans have complained that their relatives take every chance to score propaganda points for their authoritarian nation.

About 200 South Koreans and their family members crossed the border on Monday for three days of meetings with their North Korean relatives. The relatives have been given a total of 12 hours together, including three hours in private.

Another 337 South Koreans and accompanying family members will participate in a second round of reunions from Friday to Sunday.

After the initial tears at North Korea’s Diamond Mountain resort, Cha Jaegeun, an 84-year-old South Korean, and his 50-year-old North Korean nephew began an awkward exchange Monday over international politics surrounding the Korean Peninsula and the origins of the war that split their family and killed and injured millions.

The Koreas should “drive the American bastards out,” Cha Song Il, the nephew, said, according to South Korean pool reports. He accused the United States of being unfaithful to the commitments of a June summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, in which they expressed an aspirational goal for a nuclear-free peninsula without describing when or how it would occur.

The elder Cha reminded his nephew that it was North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader, who triggered the war by ordering a sneak attack on the South in June 1950.

“That’s a lie,” the nephew replied, waving both hands.

Cha Jae-geun smiled and quickly changed the subject, as South Korean officials urge their reunion participants to do if politics comes up.