North Korea - N. Korea rejects S. Korea call for talks on reunions

SEOUL - North Korea Saturday rejected the South's call for talks aimed at restarting reunions for families separated since the Korean War, saying Seoul should first respond to its conditions for dialogue.

South Korea's Red Cross Tuesday proposed the talks to discuss a resumption of the temporary reunions for family members separated since the 1950-1953 war.

Pyongyang's Minju Joson newspaper accused Seoul of talking about reunions and other exchanges while secretly seeking sanctions.

If the South was genuinely interested in family reunions and other exchanges, the paper said, it should reply to a "questionnaire" addressed to Seoul's leaders this month.

The questionnaire told the South's leaders to "repent of their crimes" following the December 17 death of the North's leader Kim Jong-Il and to honour past summit agreements.

It accused them of showing disrespect during the mourning period for Kim and told them to halt major exercises with US troops and halt "vicious" smear campaigns.

The South has dismissed the demands as unreasonable.

Hundreds of thousands of family members were separated during the war, which sealed the division of the peninsula. There are no civilian mail or phone connections across the border, and many do not even know whether their relatives are alive or dead.

The last temporary reunions, arranged by the two Koreas' Red Cross authorities but authorised by governments on both sides, began in October 2010.

Plans for further events were scrapped after the North shelled a frontline island in the South in November that year, killing four people.

Since 2000 sporadic events have briefly reunited more than 17,000 people face-to-face and an estimated 3,700 - usually those too frail to travel - via video link.

But 80,000 people in the South alone are on the waiting list for reunions and thousands die every year before getting their chance.

AFP

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