S. Korea to send advance team to DPRK for family reunion
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E-mail Xinhua, October 14, 2015
South Korea will send an advance team of government and Red Cross officials to a venue for family reunion in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) for final coordination on schedules and gatherings, Seoul's unification ministry said on Wednesday.
The reunion of Korean families, separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, was agreed in late August when top-level military advisors to South Korean President Park Geun-hye and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un met to de-escalate tensions that had put the Korean peninsula to the brink of armed conflict.
Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee told a regular press briefing that an advance team composed of 14 officials will visit the DPRK's Mount Kumgang resort, the venue for the Oct. 20- 26 reunion on Thursday.
The officials would make a final coordination with their DPRK counterparts about schedules, venues, lodgings and moving routes of the divided families, the spokesman said.
Seoul and Pyongyang traded the final lists of participants in the humanitarian event last week. A total of 97 DPRK people will meet their long-lost relatives from South Korea for three days next week.
Meeting DPRK relatives from Oct. 24 to 26 will be 90 South Koreans, mostly in their 80s and 90s. The oldest participants are two 98-year-old men who have two daughters and a son each living in the DPRK.
Millions of Koreans were divided after the Korean War ended in 1953 with a truce. Since then, civilian communications between the two Koreas have been banned.
The upcoming reunion would mark the 20th round since former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and late DPRK leader Kim Jong Il held a historic summit in 2000 in Pyongyang.
The inter-Korean summit led to a reunion held at least once a year, but strained cross-border relations in the past five years has seen the humanitarian event being held just once.
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