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Koreas reach deal on family reunions

North and South Korea announced yesterday they had reached a deal to resume reunions for families separated since the 1950 to 1953 Korean War as they wound up high-level talks, but made no clear mention of fresh aid shipments.

The countries also pledged swift implementation of a pact signed with four other countries last month on shutting down Pyongyang's nuclear program.

Delegates at the talks -- the first since the impoverished communist state tested a nuclear bomb last October -- also set dates for a series of meetings aimed at improving relations.

In a joint statement released in Pyongyang, the two Koreas said they had agreed to resume humanitarian projects. But they made no direct mention of resuming the South's aid shipments of essential rice and fertilizer, Yonhap news agency said.

Seoul has been trying to use resumption of its aid as an inducement for Pyongyang to honor last month's multilateral agreement to scrap its nuclear program.

Reunions via video link will start again this month and family members will meet face-to-face in early May.

The statement said their next ministerial meeting -- the highest-level dialogue between the two nations -- would be in Seoul from May 29 to June 1.

The two sides will hold Red Cross talks from April 10 to April 12 to discuss people the South says were kidnapped by the Pyongyang regime, as well as former prisoners who have remained in the North since the war.

"The South and the North will resume cooperation projects in the humanitarian field and work to resolve substantively the issue of separated families," the statement said.

Economic talks, which in the past have arranged details of aid shipments, will be held from April 18 to April 21 in Pyongyang.

The South suspended annual shipments of of rice and fertilizer after the North's missile tests last July sent tensions on the divided peninsula soaring.

The North hit back by walking out of ministerial talks the same month and halting the reunions of elderly Koreans, many of whom said it was their dying wish to see relatives on the other side of the border..

In the statement, the two sides pledged joint efforts smoothly to implement the agreement reached at six-nation talks in Beijing on Feb. 13, under which North Korea is to disable its nuclear program in return for economic aid and diplomatic benefits.

The agreement yesterday also called for resuming work to link railways across the fortified Korean border by the end of June.

Separately, North Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Kim Kye-gwan, has begun a rare visit to the US to discuss the possibility of Washington and Pyongyang normalizing ties.

North Korea is also scheduled to begin similar discussions with Japan in Hanoi next week.
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