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North, South Koreas to Hold Talks on Video Reunions 12 July

Posted on: Monday, 11 July 2005, 06:00 CDT

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap

Seoul, 11 July: Working-level officials from the two Koreas will meet this week to prepare for the reunions of separated families via video connections, South Korea's Red Cross said Monday [11 July].

The rival Koreas earlier agreed to install video links to allow families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War to be reunited with their long-lost relatives on 15 August.

The two-day talks, which are to begin Tuesday at the North Korean border city of Kaesong, will focus on determining the number of participating families and the location of video reunions, a Red Cross official said on condition of anonymity.

The South Korean delegation plans to propose installing 12 video reunion locations - seven in the Seoul metropolitan area and five others in provincial cities, the official said.

Communication technicians from the two Koreas met on 29 June and 5 July and agreed to establish fibre-optic cables linking Kaesong and the South Korean border city of Munsan.

Family reunions are among the most tangible results of the historic inter-Korean summit in 2000. Since then, about 10,000 family members from both sides have temporarily met through the Red Cross programme.

The two Koreas are still technically in a state of war as the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Their border is tightly sealed and there is no mail, telephone or other direct means of communication between the two sides.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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