Korean family reunions draw to a close

DPA Updated - December 07, 2021 at 01:14 AM.

North and South Korea on Tuesday were due to wrap up the latest reunions of families separated by the division of the Korean Peninsula, a media report said on Tuesday.

At the North Korean resort of Mount Kumgang, 357 people from the South and 88 relatives from the North were due to have lunch before returning home, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

The reunions were the second batch to take place between February 20 and 25.

The family gatherings are a sensitive and emotional issue for the two countries. Contact across their border through letters, emails or phone calls is usually impossible.

North and South Korea remain technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended with a ceasefire rather than a peace treaty.

The reunions were the first to take place since 2010.

Observers said they were seen as a sign of improving relations following the rise in tensions last year after North Korea carried out its third nuclear test.

Pyongyang had threatened to call off the reunions over annual military exercises by South Korean and US forces that began on Monday, but later agreed to the reunions going ahead.

North Korea regularly accuses the US and South Korea of planning an attack with their manoeuvres, an accusation both countries deny.

A North Korean patrol ship violated the Northern Limit Line off the west coast of the peninsula, the de facto maritime border between the two states, several times late Monday, Yonhap quoted the Defence Ministry in Seoul as saying.

The vessel crossed the border late Monday and returned early Tuesday, after the South Korean military broadcast 10 warnings, the report said.

“It is believed that (the North Korean vessel) intended to test the South Korean military,” Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min Seok said.

Published on February 25, 2014 07:57