South and North Korea failed to reach agreement yesterday on holding more family reunions after Pyongyang sought humanitarian aid from Seoul, officials said.
The two sides “failed to bridge differences on their stances on further reunions” but agreed to arrange more talks, an official with Seoul’s Unification Ministry told Yonhap news agency.
“The North asked for humanitarian aid from the South. We told them that we will review it after returning [to the South],” the official said.
Earlier reports said the North was seeking “reciprocity” in return for holding more reunions of families separated since the Korean War. The talks at the North’s town of Kaesong were the second to be held this week after months of hostility.
During a meeting Wednesday on another issue, the North made a rare apology to the South for causing a cross-border flood that killed six people.
But Pyongyang also test-fired five missiles on Monday.
Then on Thursday, the North accused South Korean warships of broaching its territory in waters off their west coast, warning of a naval clash along their disputed sea border — the scene of deadly naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.
The North has offered to resume key joint projects with the South and has proposed direct talks with the US, but neither initiative has yet been accepted.
As part of a series of conciliatory gestures that began in August, Pyongyang restarted a reunion program it suspended for almost two years to protest against a hardline policy toward the North by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. He has linked aid to the North to its nuclear disarmament
Hundreds of family members held brief emotional reunions in the North at the end of last month.
Millions of families remain separated following the Korean Peninsula’s division in 1945 and the ensuing Korean War.
The South proposed holding more reunions next month and next February. It wants to put the program on a regular basis since many elderly people are dying before they have the chance to meet loved ones.
Seoul officials had predicted that the North would raise the issue of rice aid.
South Korea used to send around 440,000 tonnes of rice and 272,000 tonnes of fertilizer a year to its neighbor, which suffers persistent severe food shortages.
Relations worsened when a conservative administration took office in Seoul in February 2008 and there have been no government shipments since then.
The South says cross-border relations cannot fundamentally improve till the North agrees to scrap its nuclear program.
But Unification Minister Hyun In-taek indicated on Thursday that Seoul was prepared to offer the North humanitarian aid without conditions, an apparent softening of the government’s stance.
“We will provide limited humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable groups in North Korea regardless of political and security circumstances,” he said in a speech to the EU Chamber of Commerce in Korea.
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