In the News – S. Korea to press N. Korea again to hold reunions of separated families

In the News – S. Korea to press N. Korea again to hold reunions of separated families

SEOUL, Feb. 21 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s point man on North Korea said Tuesday he will urge Pyongyang to accept Seoul’s offer to resume reunions of family members separated for nearly six decades.

The move came three days after North Korea rejected South Korea’s recent proposal to hold Red Cross talks to help arrange reunions of separated families.

The North has called for South Korea’s apology for not paying official respect over the December death of its leader Kim Jong-il as a key condition for resuming stalled bilateral talks.

South Korea expressed sympathy to the people of North Korea over Kim’s death but did not send an official mourning delegation to Pyongyang. Seoul did approve condolence trips by private delegations.

“I will urge North Korea” again to accept the issue of reuniting separated family members, Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik told reporters, without providing a specific time frame for his planned offer.

In the News – Lee Holds Out Hand to N.Korea

In the News – Lee Holds Out Hand to N.Korea

President Lee Myung-bak on Monday offered North Korea a “new era” in bilateral relations provided the Stalinist country shows it is sincere.

Six-party nuclear disarmament talks “could resume as soon as the North stops its nuclear activities,” Lee said in a nationally televised New Year’s address. “We are prepared to give the North the necessary assistance to remove its worries about security… and restore its economy.”

Lee did not demand an apology for the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010. But a senior presidential official later said Lee “didn’t exempt the North from its responsibility to apologize. It’s a message that anything the North wants will be possible once the peninsula is denuclearized. Through his New Year’s address, he extended his hand to the North.”

Another official said Lee suggested he would leave the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong issues “in the area of strategic ambiguity.”

Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik said, “We are going to watch how the North reacts while maintaining a flexible approach.”

The North Korean regime in its regular New Year’s editorial in the state papers earlier reaffirmed that it will not engage with the Lee Myung-bak administration.

Original article can be found here.