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Diamond Mountain: In this photo provided by South Korea Unification Ministry, South Korean Red Cross President Park Kyung-seo, second from left, shakes hands with his North Korean counterpart Pak Yong Il during a meeting at Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Friday, June 22, 2018.AP/PTI(AP6_22_2018_000060B)[/caption]
Seoul, June 22 (PTI/AFP): North and South Korea today agreed to resume reunions for families separated by the Korean War in August -- the first such meetings since 2015 and the latest step in a remarkable diplomatic thaw on the peninsula. Millions of people were separated during the 1950-53 conflict that sealed the division of the two Koreas.
Most died without the chance to see or hear from their relatives on the other side of the border, across which all civilian communication is banned.
The resumption of the family reunions was among the agreements reached between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the South’s president Moon Jae-in at their landmark summit in April.
Officials from both sides met at the North’s scenic Mount Kumgang resort today and set a date for late August.
“The reunion will be held from August 20 to 26 and 100 participants will be selected from each side,” said a joint Seoul-Pyongyang statement released by the South’s unification ministry.
South Korean officials will begin inspections of the Mount Kumgang resort -- the venue of the reunions -- from next week, it added.
Only about 57,000 people registered with the South Korean Red Cross to meet their separated relatives remain alive, most of them aged over 70.
For the lucky few chosen to take part, the experience is often hugely emotional, as they are given only three days to make up for decades of time apart, followed by another separation at the end -- in all likelihood permanent.
The reunion programme began in earnest after a historic inter-Korean summit in 2000 and they were initially held annually, but strained cross-border relations have made them rare.
Pyongyang has a lengthy track record of manipulating the issue of divided families for political purposes, refusing proposals for regular reunions and cancelling scheduled events at the last minute.
North Korea has previously demanded it will not agree to family reunions unless Seoul returns several of its citizens, including a group of waitresses who defected from a restaurant in China.