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Koreas Hold First Reunions via Video
Hundreds of North and South Koreans held tearful reunions via video
Tuesday as part of revived reconciliation efforts on the divided
peninsula after North Korea agreed to start dismantling its nuclear
weapons program.
China Daily
Korea
March 27, 2007
A screen shows a North Korean father Kim Hae Dong, 78, left, talking
to his South Korean daughter Kim Ki-jo, center, and his South Korean
relatives, right, through video during a video family reunion session at
the video conferencing room of Red Cross in Busan, south of Seoul, South
Korea, Tuesday, March 27, 2007. South and North Korea on Tuesday held a
new round of three days family reunions via video link after a 13-month
hiatus.
The reunions come weeks after the two sides agreed
at high-level talks to put their relations back on track after they
soured last year following the North's missile and nuclear tests.
Millions of Korean families were separated following the division of the
Korean peninsula in 1945 and the 1950-53 Korean War. There is no direct
mail, telephone service or other form of communication between ordinary
citizens across the border, as the two Koreas remain technically at war.
The North halted the reunions last year after Seoul suspended its
regular aid to Pyongyang after a series of missile tests.
Some 865 people from 120 families are participating in this week's
virtual reunions, which are scheduled to last for three days. Each
family will be given two hours to see and talk to their relatives via a
fiber-optic video cable.
"I am glad to see you," said Jung Tae Young, 48, as he glimpsed his
65-year-old South Korean aunt Jung Sam-ok on Tuesday for the first time
since the Korean War.
Jung and his South Korean relatives shared family pictures and asked
each other about life on the other side of the peninsula.
Han Wan-sang, head of the South's Red Cross society, called on his North
Korean counterpart to help the separated families by regularly holding
reunions.
"Pains caused by division are enormous," Han told his North Korean
counterpart, Jang Jae On, noting the urgency for the meetings because
many seeking to see relatives are elderly.
Some 32,000 South Koreans died in the past decade without seeing
long-lost relatives from the North, according to the South's Red Cross.
The two Koreas also plan to resume face-to-face family reunions at the
North's Diamond Mountain resort in May, the 15th such scheduled since a
2000 summit between the leaders of North and South that launched their
historic reconciliation. So far, more than 14,500 Koreans have met in
such reunions.
The reunions coincided with a batch of resumed fertilizer shipments to
the impoverished North in the wake of its agreement last month to shut
down its main nuclear reactor by mid-April.
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