[When Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, met with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea on April 27 to discuss peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, they also tackled the question of the separations — one of the peninsula’s most emotional humanitarian issues.]
By
Choe Sang-Hun
 |
|
In
front of pictures of previous gatherings, a Red Cross official in Seoul took
applications on
Friday for an expected inter-Korean family reunion set for
August. Credit
Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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SEOUL,
South Korea — North and
South Korea agreed to hold temporary reunions in August of families separated
by the Korean War, officials said on Friday, a sign of improving ties between
the countries.
The officials said that 100 older citizens
from each country would meet with hundreds of relatives from the other side
during three days of gatherings from Aug. 20-26 at the Diamond Mountain resort
in North Korea.
The reunions, organized by the Red Cross
societies of the two Koreas, will include relatives who have not seen each
other since they were separated during the chaos of the 1950-1953 Korean War.
The meetings provide a rare glimpse of the
personal pain that the long political divide has inflicted on families.
When Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea,
met with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea on April 27 to discuss peace and
the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, they also tackled the question of
the separations — one of the peninsula’s most emotional humanitarian issues.
The Korean War ended in a truce in 1953, and
the peninsula was then divided by the world’s most heavily armed border. Many
Koreans found themselves and their loved ones on opposite sides of that
frontier, called the Demilitarized Zone.
In most cases, relatives have been forbidden
to exchange letters, phone calls or emails — much less to meet — for six
decades.
Through the Red Cross, the two Koreas have
organized only 19 similar short-term reunions since 1985.
The reunions are painfully brief, lasting
only a few days before the families are once again separated. In the last round
of reunions, held in 2015, fewer than 100 people from each side were selected
to meet with relatives, and the gatherings lasted only three days.
Since 1988, more than 75,200 South Koreans
who applied for reunions have died without seeing their parents, siblings or
children again. Last month alone, 462 applicants died in South Korea, according
to government data. More than 56,000 South Koreans, the majority of whom are in
their 80s and 90s, are waiting to be selected by lottery.
North Korea is believed to give priority to
people deemed loyal to the government when making its selection for
participants.
South Korea has repeatedly called for more
reunions, which are widely viewed as a barometer of relations.
Efforts to build an inter-Korean détente
gained momentum in February, when North Korea sent athletes to the Winter
Olympics in South Korea, and the countries fielded a unified women’s hockey
team.
The two Koreas were encouraged to discuss
more trust-building projects after Mr. Kim met with President Trump in
Singapore on June 12, the first time a North Korean leader had met a sitting
president of the United States.
On Monday, representatives from the two
Koreas agreed that their athletes would march under a single flag during the
opening and closing ceremonies of the Asian Games in Indonesia later this year.
They also agreed to hold exhibition basketball matches in Pyongyang and Seoul
in the coming months.
