KOREA Seoul proposes to Pyongyang to reunite families divided by war

Since 2000, family reunions have become a tool to promote inter-Korean dialogue. In the past decade, the meetings have become more and more spaced out: the last meeting was in 2018. South Korea has about 43,700 citizens enrolled in the government’s reunification program, but 85% are over 70 years old.

Seoul () – For many divided families, this could be the last time they hug. On the eve of the traditional Korean Chuseok holiday, South Korean Unification Minister Kwon Young-se proposed to Pyongyang to resume talks to allow families divided between North and South to meet more frequently.

For more than 70 years, tens of thousands of families have been divided by the most militarized border in the world. This is one of the legacies of the division of Korea and of the fratricidal war (which, formally, was never concluded) that has continued to confront South and North Korea since 1950. However, since 2000, thanks to the Former President Kim Dae-jung’s “sunshine policy”, reunions between divided families have become a tool to promote inter-Korean dialogue and de-escalation between the two countries. The truth is that in the last decade, these meetings have become increasingly rare: the last was in 2018, when for a brief moment the diplomacy of Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump managed to ease tensions with North Korea.

From Seoul, Kwon warns that “we have to solve the problem before the word ‘separate families’ disappears”, since at this point, much of the generation that experienced the trauma of the partition of Korea is very old. In South Korea there are about 43,700 citizens enrolled in the government program for reunification with relatives living in the North and 85% are over 70 years old, according to data from the ministry.

In the message sent to the North, Kwon stresses that the occasional reunification of a small number of divided families is not enough and reiterates that the Seoul government is ready to talk at any time. The proposal was quite unexpected, since this opening collides with the tense moment that the peninsula is experiencing. Pyongyang grapples with spread of covid in North Korea, and has been preparing a new nuclear test for several months, according to South Korean intelligence.

At the moment, the new president Yoon Suk-yeol does not seem to have aroused any sympathy in Kim Jong Un’s circle. Last month, the South Korean president promised a “bold move” to denuclearize North Korea. The response from Kom Yo Jong, the sister of the North Korean leader, was icy: she urged Yoon to focus on internal affairs and not deal with inter-Korean relations.

The conservative government in Seoul has no intention of proposing incentives – such as food aid – to bring the North to the negotiating table. “The North must respond as the issue of separated families is a humanitarian issue,” Kwon said. Despite this, according to the news agency Yonhaplast month, for the first time, the Ministry of Unification of the Yoon government would have given the green light to the aid plan of a civil group to provide food assistance to the North.

The truth is that in the face of Seoul’s initiatives in recent years, Pyongyang has often remained silent. But Kwon doesn’t give up. “Even if there is no response from North Korea, we will continue to knock on the door and make proposals.”