SEOUL, Sept. 8 (BNA) The new South Korean government Thursday proposed holding a meeting with North Korea to resume reunions of families separated since the 1950-1953 Korean War, despite the strained relations between the two rivals over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
Family reunification is a very emotional human issue as it includes those in their 80s and over who are desperate to be reunited with their long-lost relatives before they died, the AP reports.
But North Korea, which often uses the reunion as a bargaining chip in dealing with South Korea, is unlikely to accept the offer as it resolutely rejects offers from Seoul and Washington to resume talks on its nuclear program and other issues while focusing instead on mastering its weapons. technology.
“The south and the north have to face the painful parts of reality. We must resolve the issue before the term ‘separated families’ disappears,” Unification Minister Kwon Yongse said in a televised briefing. “We need to use all possible means immediately to come up with quick and basic measures.”
Kwon said South Korea hopes that officials from the two Koreas will meet in person as soon as possible for a frank discussion.
His performance came two days before Chuseok, the Thanksgiving feast celebrated in both Koreas.
Inter-Korean exchange programs have been stalled since the 2019 collapse of broader US-led diplomacy aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear program in exchange for economic and political benefits.
Washington urged Pyongyang to return to the talks without any conditions, but said it would not do so unless the United States first abandoned its hostile policies toward the North.
Since taking power in May, South Korea’s neo-conservative government led by President Yoon Seok-yeol has offered a massive support plan in exchange for denuclearization, but North Korea has vehemently rejected it.
Yoon also offered a shipment of COVID-19 relief items, but North Korea also ignored them. Last month, North Korea blamed the recent COVID-19 outbreak on balloons launched from South Korea and warned of a deadly retaliation.
North Korea is also maintaining more than two-and-a-half years of border closures due to the pandemic, another potential obstacle to reviving family reunifications.
Some South Korean observers may try to use the talks about family reunions as a way to find a breakthrough in relations with North Korea. Kwon told reporters that he believed that the dialogue offer for family reunions could help resolve other inter-Korean issues.
Since the Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, the two Koreas have banned millions of people separated from the war from visiting their relatives across the world’s most heavily fortified border. Decades later, most had no word on whether their loved ones were still alive.
The two Koreas sometimes allowed separated families to meet temporarily, but no reunions have taken place since 2018. According to the Unification Ministry, about 133,650 people in South Korea have applied for reunification, but nearly 70% of them have died.
During previous reunions, participants were usually given three days to meet their relatives and none were given a second chance to see them again.
These encounters brought together fathers, children, brothers, sisters, and others who wept, hugged, and asked each other about their lives.
South Korea uses a computerized lottery system to select participants. Observers say North Korea chooses citizens loyal to its authoritarian government and is reluctant to extend the reunion because it fears that its citizens’ contacts with wealthy South Koreans will weaken its rule.
During the previous “sunshine” era of inter-Korean détente from 1998 to 2008, liberal governments in South Korea often supplied North Korea with rice and fertilizer to hold reunions. Kwon said the new government is not considering any incentives to resume family reunions.
He said the government was seeking to send an official message to North Korea about its offer to hold talks. Kwon said.