By Jung Sung-ki
South and North Korea held Red Cross talks Friday to discuss the resumption of the reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, but failed to reach an agreement on the details of the meetings.
Delegates from the two Koreas will meet again next Friday to iron out differences concerning the date and venue, according to the Ministry of Unification.
South Korean-owned facilities had been either frozen or seized since early this year amid strained relations between the two countries.
Seoul, which does not acknowledge the validity of Pyongyang’s action, proposed that the reunions be held at the family reunion center, which was last used in October 2009. The North, however, was reluctant to accept the offer.
North Korea experts say the reclusive state may be trying to extract concessions from the South over the resort. The seizure of the tourism facilities at the mountain resort came after Seoul refused to resume cross-border tours that had been suspended over the shooting death of a female tourist in 2008.
If held, the reunions will be the first such meetings in a year between the two countries whose ties are showing signs of improvement after a months-long standoff following the March 26 sinking of South Korea’s warship Cheonan.
"We proposed the family reunions be regularized and that the new event involve a greater number of people than before," ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said.
Tens of thousands of people are waiting on both sides of the border for a chance to reunite with their family members left on the other side after the 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce.
Only 20,800 family members have enjoyed such chances since 2000 when the two Koreas held their first summit. About one-fifth of them have been reunited via video. The two governments strictly restrict contact between their citizens, citing their technical state of conflict.
Earlier Friday, a 14-member South Korean delegation crossed the heavily armed western border into North Korea for a meeting in the border town of Gaeseong.
“We can no longer procrastinate on the family reunion issue,” Kim Eyi-do, head of the South Korean Red Cross delegation, told reporters in Seoul before departing for the North. Kim also supervises unification policy coordination with the government.
South Korean officials have said their priority is to persuade the North to agree to regular family reunions, regardless of the political situation.
The exchange came amid a series of conciliatory overtures from North Korea since late last month when its leader traveled to China and promised to work for the resumption of the stalled multilateral denuclearization talks.
It also comes as Pyongyang is seeking outside aid to recover from floods that have devastated some parts of the country since early last month. These were made worse by Typhoon Kompasu in early September, which killed dozens of people and caused severe property damage.
Seoul, communicating through the Red Cross, has promised rice and cement for the North's recovery efforts, announcing 10 billion won ($8.6 million) in aid on Sept. 13, two days after the North offered talks on reuniting displaced families.
In addition, South Korea has approved civilian flood aid to North Korea, the first batch of which crossed the border Friday morning, containing 203 tons of rice, according to customs officials in the South Korean border town of Paju, northwest of Seoul.
Rice aid to the North was suspended after the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration took office with a tougher stance on the North and its nuclear arms program in 2008.
The bilateral ties frayed to the worst level in years when South Korea blamed North Korea in May this year for the Yellow Sea sinking of the frigate Cheonan, which claimed the lives of 46 sailors, the biggest peacetime naval disaster in South Korea's history.
North Korea continues to deny its role in the sinking, calling it a fabrication by the conservative South Korean government and demanding its own onsite investigation as recently as Thursday, when its military held talks with the U.S.-led U.N. command.
Friday's Red Cross talks drew heightened attention because such meetings have a history of paving the ground for broader inter-Korean discussions. South Korea, however, has yet to decide whether to agree to the North's new proposal to hold military talks on cross-border disputes.