Video conferencing reunions could happen next year
North Koreans walk on a pedestrian bridge that crosses Pothong River in Pyongyang, Dec. 16. AP-Yonhap
By Kim Yoo-chul
South Korea plans to hold reunions of families separated by the division of the two Koreas using video conferencing, a spokesman at the Ministry of Unification said, Monday.
“South Korea will be developing discussions with North Korea to make an event of family reunions using video conferencing, happening early next year. We are working on it,” ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun said in a media briefing at the government complex in downtown Seoul.
Baik said the decision came after Seoul agreed with Washington to move forward with inter-Korean exchange programs created for humanitarian purposes. Special U.S. envoy for North Korean issues Steve Biegun visited South Korea recently to meet with his South Korean counterparts to coordinate discussions on both countries' negotiations with North Korea.
For years, Seoul has been calling for regular meetings between separated families including using video conferencing, but the reunion programs often fell victim to fragile relations with the North.
North Korean women chat under a tree in Pyongyang, where the winter has started, on Sunday, Dec. 16. AP-Yonhap
Humanitarian assistance to North Korea is now excluded from the punitive measures levied against the country. Baik said the South will also discuss with the North about providing Tamiflu antiviral medication to its impoverished neighbor.
The ministry spokesman said the two Koreas will confer about how much and in what specific ways the medicine and early detection kits would be delivered to Pyongyang.
The two Koreas have held family reunions several times, but the meetings were mostly brief given the tight schedule. The reunions, which began in 1985, can be traumatic for the aging survivors, according to the ministry spokesman.
About 132,600 individuals were listed as members of separated families as of the end of July this year. Out of the 57,000 who are still alive, 41.2 percent are in their 80s and 21.4 percent are their 90s, the ministry data said.