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Koreas discuss setting up meeting place for separated families
Seoul, Sept 07: North and South Korean Red Cross officials today agreed in principle to open a permanent facility where families separated by the division of Korea could meet their relatives, a media pool report said.
Seoul, Sept 07: North and South Korean Red Cross officials today agreed in principle to open a permanent facility where families separated by the division of Korea
could meet their relatives, a media pool report said.
The two sides, however, differed over the location and number of such places, with the north insisting on Mount Kumgang as the venue for the reunion centre.
The scenic mountain on the eastern coast is the only tourist attraction in the north open to South Koreans.
The north also suggested that the two sides jointly build the reunion centre at Mount Kumgang. South Korea for its part suggested a reunion centre be set up at Mount Kumgang and a second one at Dorasan Station, the south's northernmost stop on the cross-border railway linking Seoul and North Korea's northern city of Sinuiju.
The two Koreas have agreed to restore the railway and connections. They have allowed hundreds of separated relatives to reunite but there are hundreds of thousands more who are waiting for their chance to see their long-lost loved ones.
Efforts to bring together families separated for half a century by the Cold War division of the peninsula are part of an inter-Korean peace process revived last month.
Bureau Report
The scenic mountain on the eastern coast is the only tourist attraction in the north open to South Koreans.
The north also suggested that the two sides jointly build the reunion centre at Mount Kumgang. South Korea for its part suggested a reunion centre be set up at Mount Kumgang and a second one at Dorasan Station, the south's northernmost stop on the cross-border railway linking Seoul and North Korea's northern city of Sinuiju.
The two Koreas have agreed to restore the railway and connections. They have allowed hundreds of separated relatives to reunite but there are hundreds of thousands more who are waiting for their chance to see their long-lost loved ones.
Efforts to bring together families separated for half a century by the Cold War division of the peninsula are part of an inter-Korean peace process revived last month.
Bureau Report