{"id":182526,"date":"2022-09-09T11:50:59","date_gmt":"2022-09-09T08:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/?p=182526"},"modified":"2022-09-09T11:50:59","modified_gmt":"2022-09-09T08:50:59","slug":"south-korea-proposes-new-talks-with-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/south-korea-proposes-new-talks-with-north\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea proposes new talks with North"},"content":{"rendered":"

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South Korea has proposed talks with North Korea to discuss how to help the thousands of families who were separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, in its latest direct overture to Pyongyang since President Yoon Suk-yeol took office in May.<\/p>\n

Unification Minister Kwon Young-se extended the invitation to dialogue on the eve of\u00a0Chuseok, one of the biggest holidays for Koreans on both sides\u00a0of the border, describing the separation of families as part of a \u201cpainful reality\u201d.<\/p>\n

Seoul is\u00a0willing to consider Pyongyang\u2019s preferences in deciding the date, venue, agenda and format of the talks, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that responsible officials of the two sides will meet in person as soon as possible for a candid discussion on humanitarian matters including the issue of separated families,\u201d Kwon said.<\/p>\n

Families were torn apart in 1953, when an armistice brought the fighting in the\u00a0Korean War\u00a0to an end but left North and South still technically at war and the peninsula split by the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) and heavily-fortified border.<\/p>\n

All direct civilian exchanges, even a simple visit to a mother, brother, father or sister, were banned.<\/p>\n

Decades later, most have no word on whether their loved ones are still alive.<\/p>\n

The governments of the two Koreas have occasionally allowed brief reunions \u2014 the last one took place in\u00a0North Korea in 2018\u00a0\u2014 but most separated families have no idea whether their loved ones are still alive.<\/p>\n

It is unclear whether North Korea, which has already\u00a0rejected Yoon\u2019s proposal for aid in return for denuclearisation, will accept the latest offer.<\/p>\n

Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, said the chances were extremely low.<\/p>\n

\u201cFamily reunions is a basic humanitarian issue but in reality it requires a substantial level of trust between both sides,\u201d he told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n

The latest proposal comes at a time of heightened tension between North and South, with Pyongyang carrying out an unprecedented number of missile tests this year, and also blaming Seoul for the outbreak of COVID-19 in its territory.<\/p>\n

The issue of family reunions has become increasingly fraught as the decades have passed.<\/p>\n

Many of those who were separated are now in their 80s and older and eager to reunite with their long-lost relatives before they die. About 400 people were passing away each month, Kwon said.<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Korea has proposed talks with North Korea to discuss how to help the thousands of families who were separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, in its latest direct overture to Pyongyang since President Yoon Suk-yeol took office in May. Unification Minister Kwon Young-se extended the invitation to dialogue on the eve of\u00a0Chuseok, one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":182527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10221280388112155_325455220908133":"","twitter_917774835383787521_917774835383787521":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182526"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182529,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182526\/revisions\/182529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}