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| Family members hold hands during a reunion event held at a venue in the Mount Kumgang resort, North Korea, in this Aug. 25, 2018, file photo. Activists representing the families dispersed by the Korean War (1950-53) have been invited by North Korea to visit Pyongyang in the first such case in more than three years, officials said Monday. Korea Times file |
1st Pyongyang trip request in over 3 years under review amid tensions
By Jung Min-ho
Activists representing the families dispersed by the Korean War (1950-53) have been invited by North Korea to visit Pyongyang in the first such case in more than three years.
At Monday's press briefing, Koo Byoung-sam, spokesman for the Unification Ministry, said it has been reviewing the validity of a travel request form submitted Feb. 10 by three officials of the Inter-Korean Separated Family Association.
"We are examining the organization that invited them, including whether it can be trusted," Koo said.
If approved, they would be the first South Koreans to officially visit North Korea since 2019.
According to the invitation revealed by Ryu Jae-bok, head of the organization established in 2012 to promote inter-Korean exchanges, he and its two directors ― Maeng Jung-a and Choi Im-ho ― were invited to the North Korean capital. The host said the purpose of their visit will be to discuss possible projects regarding the divided families, saying it would "provide safety and stay expenses" for the guests.
The family association said the host is an organization affiliated to the regime's United Front Department, known for propaganda espionage operations, without revealing its name.
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| Koo Byoung-sam, spokesman for the Unification Ministry, speaks during a press briefing at the government complex in Seoul, Monday. Newsis |
The news comes about a week after the ministry said it would step up efforts to connect the separated family members with their loved ones in the North by any means possible despite growing tensions and no progress on peace talks in recent years.
According to the ministry, more than 10,000 people who had been on the waiting list for family reunions have died over the past three years. Of the 134,000 people on that list, only 42,000, or 31 percent, are still alive. In two years, that is expected to fall below 30 percent, with more than 65 percent of the remaining survivors in their 80s or 90s.
Emphasizing the urgency of the issue, Minister Kwon Young-se proposed discussions with North Korea about arranging reunion events for them before the term "separated families" disappears into the history books, ahead of the Chuseok holiday. But the North has not responded.
With North Korea being uncooperative on the issue, the ministry said it would ask the North to exchange information about the separated families on both sides first, as many wish to at least know whether their loved ones are still alive.
Since the first Seoul-Pyongyang summit in 2000, the two sides have held 21 rounds of face-to-face family reunion events, including the latest one in August 2018.
Both liberal and conservative administrations in the past shared the vision of progress on the humanitarian issue even at the height of military tension. When former President Lee Myung-bak was in office from 2008 to 2013, a reunion event was held in September 2009 despite the death of a South Korean woman shot dead by a North Korean soldier while on holiday at Mt. Kumgang a year earlier. Another event was staged in October 2010, seven months after the North Korean military's torpedo attack on the South Korean Navy corvette, Cheonan. There were two such events held during Park Geun-hye's term in office from 2013 to 2017 despite the continuation of North Korea's nuclear weapons development.
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