SEOUL The North and South Korean Red Cross Organizations on Tuesday exchanged lists of 100 people from each country who later this month will meet families they have not seen for half a century because of Cold War hostility. One hundred North Koreans will fly to Seoul and 100 South Koreans will travel to Pyongyang on August 15 the day both Koreas celebrate liberation from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II for four days of family reunions.
The two Red Cross Organizations exchanged their lists at a meeting at the border village of Panmunjom, South Korean Red Cross officials said. All forms of communication between citizens of the two countries have been banned since the outbreak of the Korean War a half-century ago. The 1950-53 conflict ended in an armed truce that has left the two Koreas armed to the teeth on the world's most militarized border and still technically at war. The family reunions were among the key agreements reached at an historic summit between the leaders of North and South Korea in Pyongyang in June. Around seven million South Koreans have at least distant family in the communist North. A total of 76,000 South Koreans applied for the reunions.
Family reunions have been officially sanctioned only once, in 1985, when 50 people from each side were allowed to meet their long-lost relatives. The two sides have been discussing setting up a permanent contact point for reunions.
(Reuter)