[USFK Forums] Koreas agree to confirm fate of missing people from Korean War [Yonhap]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Friday, February 24, 2006

(3rd LD) Koreas agree to confirm fate of missing people from Korean War

2006/02/23 22:14

MOUNT GEUMGANG, North Korea, Feb. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Thursday agreed to work toward confirming the fate of missing South Koreans from and after the 1950-53 Korean War.

The agreement came at the end of three-day inter-Korean talks between the countries' Red Cross officials at Mount Geumgang, a scenic mountain resort in the North.

"The sides agreed to negotiate and resolve the issue of separated families, including those whose fate remains unknown from during or after the war," they said in a joint statement released at the end of the talks.

The agreement came as a compromise after Seoul demanded earlier that the countries work toward confirming the fate of South Korean prisoners from the 1950-53 Korean War, as well as civilians seized since the war's end, according to South Korean officials at the Red Cross talks, which began Tuesday.

But this is the first time for the communist state to acknowledge that there are people missing since the war erupted, they said.

More than 500 South Korean POWs are believed to be still alive in the North, as well as some 480 civilians abducted after the end of the war, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.

North Korea has never acknowledged holding anyone against their will in the country, claiming the South Koreans defected voluntarily.

The small but significant concession from the North, as the South Korean officials labeled it, came after a last-minute tug-of-war over whether to specify South Korean prisoners and abductees in the joint statement.

The two parties were originally scheduled to announce their joint statement at 10 a.m., but the closing meeting was pushed back until 8:55 p.m., while their chief delegates held two unscheduled meetings to try and narrow their differences.

"The North's agreement to work toward resolving the issue of confirming the fate of South Korean POWs and abductees, an issue that it has long denied existed, may signal the start of efforts to resolve the issue," a South Korean official said on condition of anonymity.

The Koreas remain divided along the world's most heavily fortified border, a legacy of the Korean War. Ties have warmed significantly since their leaders held an historic summit in 2000, but the two countries remain in a state of war as the three-year Korean War ended in an armistice not a peace pact.

The sides also agreed to hold a special round of reunions in June between families separated by their countries' division over half a century ago, which could involve 200 families from each side. The countries have held 12 rounds of such face-to-face reunions involving 100 families from each side since the first-ever summit in 2000.

However, nearly 100,000 people in the South alone remain separated from their relations at least since the end of the fratricidal Korean War.

According to the joint statement, the countries are also to hold two new rounds of Red Cross-organized family reunions in June and August via special video linkups, while working to expand their efforts to confirm the fate and whereabouts of the separated families on each side.

Seoul had earlier proposed holding as many as eight rounds of family reunions a year, in addition to monthly video reunions.

South Korea will provide the North with the equipment it needs to expand the Red Cross programs to reunite the family members, according to the seven-point agreement. In this regard, the sides agreed to hold a working-level meeting in March.

In addition, the two Koreas agreed to discuss ways of expanding the family reunions at the next round of Red Cross talks, the eighth of their kind, to be held again in the North's mountain resort in June.

bdk@yna.co.kr
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