It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

MORE NORTH-SOUTH FAMILY REUNIONS

The Agence France-Presse ("TWO KOREAS AGREE ON FAMILY REUNIONS IN FEBRUARY," 12/17/02) reported that the ROK and the DPRK agreed to arrange more reunions of families media reports said. The accord was reached at inter-Korean rapprochement talks at Mount Kumgang resort taking place amid rising tension over the DPRK's mothballed nuclear program. Negotiators agreed to allow 200 people -- 100 each from the DPRK and the ROK-- to meet long-lost relatives at Mount Kumgang around the lunar New Year holiday which falls on February 1, according to ROK pooled media reports from Kumgang Tuesday. But the two sides had yet to agree on when and how to set up a permanent family reunion center in the DPRK's mountain resort, one of the items on the talks agenda, the reports said. Two separate teams of ROK negotiators had been in Mount Kumgang since Sunday to discuss progress on arranging reunions of families split by the 1950-53 Korean War and on cross-border road and rail links. Troops from both Koreas have cleared landmines from the heavily-fortified border over the past three months to prepare two transportation corridors for the rail and road links. But a looming nuclear standoff has weighed heavily on the inter-Korean talks.

There is something almost surreal about this: amid the bellicose rhetoric, tensions, talk of nuclear arms and war, the two Koreas continue on their course of gradual engagement and interaction.