Family Reunion After 60 Years

Representatives of South Korea and North Korea agreed today to hold a meeting of families separated by the war between the 20 and 25 February, more than three years after the last meeting.

Red Cross delegates from both countries, who gathered today at the border village of Panmunjom, reached an agreement to hold meetings during those six days in the Mount Kumgang resort located in North Korean territory, according to a spokeswoman from the Ministry Unification in Seoul.

The spokesman explained that the South Korean government will soon release more details on the agreement to resume these humanitarian events, the latest of which took place in late 2010.

The new attempt to regain dating among relatives of both countries carrying more than six separated by the Korean War (1950-53) comes after decades past invite Pyongyang Seoul weeks to open a stage of relaxation.

In response, South Korea officially proposed to the North retake these meetings considered urgent by the advanced age of the participants.

Tens of thousands of Koreans were unable to resume contact with their relatives across the border since the war confirmed the division into two of the Korean peninsula between the capitalist South and the communist North.

Both countries held their first event of family reunification in 1985, but until 2000 did not take place the second meeting. From then until 2010 18 meetings that allowed more than 3,800 citizens briefly reunited with relatives after decades of separation took place.

Of those who have applied for these family reunions, 80% are older than 70 years, according to Seoul, and several of these elders die each year without being able to return to see their relatives on the other side of the inscrutable border between North and South.