N. Korea state media rules out family reunions without repatriation of defectors

By 임장원 Posted : July 7, 2017, 16:17 Updated : July 7, 2017, 17:36

[Yonhap Photo]


North Korea's state media rejected any reunions for family members separated by war unless Seoul sends home its citizens who defected last year, clouding prospects of an inter-Korean thaw proposed by South Korea's president.

The North's official website, Uriminzokkiri, renewed its demand for the return of 12 waitresses at a North Korean restaurant in the Chinese city of Ningbo who arrived in Seoul in April 2016. Pyongyang accused South Korean intelligence agents of abducting them, but Seoul insisted they have come of their own volition.

"If they continue to ignore our demands and play tricks, the issue of reunions for separated families will not be solved anytime soon," it said in a commentary. "South Korean authorities should know this straight and make the right choice."

The demand came a day after South Korean President Moon Jae-in offered in a speech in Berlin to suspend all acts of hostility on the heavily armed inter-Korean border and hold family reunions on October 4. Family reunions have been a highly emotional issue and the last reunion was in October 2015. 

Millions of people were displaced by the sweep of the Korean conflict, which ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically at war. Direct cross-border exchanges of letters or telephone calls are banned.

There are more than 65,000 South Koreans currently on the waiting list for a reunion spot, but North Korea has rejected Seoul's repeated requests to make the reunions longer and more frequent.  The reunion program began in earnest after a historic North-South summit in 2000. It was initially an annual event before strained relations interrupted their frequency. Pyongyang has long manipulated the reunion issue as a tool for extracting concessions from Seoul.

Lim Chang-wn = cwlim34@ajunews.com
 
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