How We Present the News
WORLD NEWS
Positive Trends
Success Stories
Flops
Agriculture
Business
Culture
Education
Government
Health
Science
World Peace
News by
Country
Maharishi in the World Today
Excellence in Action
Consciousness Based Education
Ideal Society
Index
Invincible World
Action for
Achievement
Announcements
WATCH LIVE
Maharishi® Channel
Maharishi TV
Maharishi Darshan Hindi Press Conferences
Maharishi's Press Conferences and Great Global Events
ULTIMATE GIFTS
Maharishi's
Programmes
Maharishi's
Courses
Maharishi's
Publications
Scintillating
Intelligence
Worldwide Links
Transcendental
Meditation
RESEARCH
Album of Events
Celebration
Calendars
Musicmall ♬
Search
|
Koreas agree to hold family reunions this month
by Hyung-Jin Kim
The Associated Press Translate This Article
5 February 2014
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The rival Koreas agreed Wednesday to hold their first reunions of Korean War-divided families in more than three years later this month, another small step forward in easing tensions that comes despite North Korea's anger over upcoming U.S.-South Korean military drills.
Many had been skeptical in Seoul that the North would agree to a quick resumption of the dramatic reunions because of the annual military exercises that Seoul and Washington plan later this month. North Korea calls them a rehearsal for invasion, and used last year's drills to partly justify a torrent of threats and provocations that still clouds relations on the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea also scrapped an earlier plan for reunions at the last minute in September after accusing South Korea of planning war drills and other hostile acts. It is again calling for the cancellation of the annual drills. Seoul and Washington insist they are purely defensive and have refused to call them off.
On Wednesday, however, in a meeting of Red Cross delegates at a border village, North Korea agreed to hold the reunions Feb. 20-25 at its scenic Diamond Mountain, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry, which is responsible for cross-border affairs. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency also confirmed the arrangements.
During Wednesday's talks, South Korea expressed regret over the cancellation of the previous reunions, and North Korea agreed there should be no such recurrence, a ministry statement said. Under the agreement, 100 elderly people from each country chosen last September will meet their relatives, the statement said.
The talks were arranged after North Korea last month approved a resumption of the reunion program, which has been stalled since late 2010. North Korea has recently ratcheted down its typical harsh rhetoric against South Korea and has made a series of conciliatory gestures in a sharp departure from a year ago, when it threatened Washington and Seoul with nuclear war and vowed to restart its production of fuel for nuclear weapons.
Analysts say impoverished North Korea needs improved ties with Seoul to help attract foreign investment and aid to improve living conditions and revive its sagging economy, and that it is unlikely to abruptly cancel this month's reunions.
Analyst Hong Hyun-ik from South Korea's private Sejong Institute said North Korea is also likely to ask South Korea to resume a lucrative joint tourism project at Diamond Mountain and provide fertilizer and other humanitarian assistance.
Hong said the reunions are a symbolic move that could thaw tensions between the two Koreas, but relations could quickly sour again after the reunions end.
North Korea launched deadly artillery strikes on a front-line South Korean island in November 2010, only a few weeks after the last family reunions were held.
The two Koreas share one of the world's most heavily fortified borders and ordinary citizens are not allowed to exchange phone calls, letters and emails between the countries. The Korean Peninsula is still technically in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
About 22,000 Koreans have had brief family reunions—18,000 in person and the others by video—during periods of detente, but no one has had a second chance to meet their relatives.
Copyright © 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Every day Global Good News documents the rise of a better quality of life dawning in the world from good news reported by the press; and highlights the need for introducing Natural Law based—Total Knowledge based—programmes to bring the support of Nature to every individual, raise the quality of life of every society, and create a lasting state of world peace.
Translation software is not perfect; however if you would like to try it, you can translate this page using:
Send Good News to Global Good News.
Your comments.
|
|