Seoul seeks to put family reunions on North Korea talks agenda

A man watches a photo, second from left, showing athletes from North and South Korea march together, led by a unification flag during the 2000 Sydney Olympics, displayed at a street campaign ahead of two Koreas talks in Seoul Monday. (AP)

SEOUL: South Korea will seek discussions on resuming reunions of separated families at this week’s inter-Korean talks, Seoul’s top delegate said Monday, as the North trumpeted 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 Tuesday at the border 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 also expected to 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 Myoung-Gyon told reporters, according to the Yonhap news agency.
Because 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 programs, launching ballistic missiles it said are 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 neighbors was restored after being suspended for almost two years.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said the North’s participation in Pyeongchang would strengthen the Games’ profile as “a peace Olympics,” Yonhap reported, and could lead to further progress.
Later Monday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it had “extended the deadline” for North Korea’s participation in the Winter Olympics.
On Saturday, North Korea Olympic body member Chang Ung said the isolated state was “likely to participate” in the Games from Feb. 9-25, Kyodo news agency reported.
Talks between the two Koreas hosted by IOC President Thomas Bach will take place at the Olympic movement’s Swiss headquarters on Tuesday.
North Korea’s state media has stopped condemning the South and instead called for “independent reunification” without relying on other countries such as the US.
“The master of improved inter-Korean relations is not the outsiders but the Korean nation itself,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said at the weekend.
“The flunkeyism and idea of dependence on outside forces are the venom which makes the nation slavish and spiritless,” it added.