Pyongyang, Seoul Set Date for Reunions

Updated Feb. 5, 2014 4:59 a.m. ET

Lee Duk-haeng, left, the head of South Korea’s delegation on family reunions, shakes hands with his North Korean counterpart, Park Yong-Il, after their meeting in Panmunjom, North Korea, on Wednesday. Getty Images

SEOUL—The two Koreas agreed on Wednesday to hold the first reunion of families separated by the Korean War in over three years later this month, potentially reviving the stalled humanitarian program.
The family reunions—a rare example of cross-border cooperation—are slated to be held from Feb. 20 to 25 at the Mt. Kumgang resort in North Korea, the South’s Unification Ministry said. The two sides reached agreement on the plan during talks at the border earlier in the day.
Each side has selected 100 family members to meet relatives who were separated by the 1950-53 war, the ministry said. The reunions would be the first since October 2010.
The move appears to mark progress in improving inter-Korean ties. But South Korea remains wary after the North abruptly canceled a scheduled family reunion event last September in protest over Seoul’s refusal to fast-track discussions on re-opening a joint tourism venture at the Mt. Kumgang resort, a key source of revenue for the North.
The new schedule for the reunions also begins just before annual military drills in South Korea that the North routinely labels rehearsals for invasion. Officials at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. military said the drills would likely start during the time frame for the reunions, raising concerns that North Korea may pull out of the plan or try use it as leverage against the drills.
Pyongyang has a track record of using the U.S.-South Korean military exercises as an excuse to scuttle inter-Korean peace projects.
“We hope this agreement will be implemented without any glitches and help to ease the suffering and grief of separated families,” Lee Duk-haeng, head of South Korea’s delegation to the border talks told a news conference after returning to Seoul.
Mr. Lee said the North had neither protested nor commented directly on the upcoming U.S.-South Korean military drills during the talks.
The North’s state-run news agency also reported the agreement without mentioning the drills.
Millions of Koreans were separated by the war, with many of them dying without seeing each other again. No regular cross-border mail or phone services exist.
The two Koreas have only allowed family reunions on a temporary and irregular basis since the first such event in 1985. The project—involving cross-border travel and video chats–had flourished from the first inter-Korean summit in 2000 through 2010.
The reunions stopped after the North shelled a southern border island in 2010, killing two South Korean soldiers and two civilians.
In recent months, Pyongyang has stepped up calls for better cross-border relations, but officials and analysts caution that the North’s moves might be a deception ahead of new military provocations.
Official data show more than 70,000 South Koreans, mostly in their 80s or older, remain on the waiting list for reunions. The Seoul government uses a lottery to pick candidates for the meetings.
Write to Kwanwoo Jun at kwanwoo.jun@wsj.com

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