Jun Kyu-myung, an 86-year-old South Korean, firmly grabbed the hand of his wife in North Korea, Han Eum-jeon, on Saturday when he met with her for the first time since the 1950-53 Korean War.
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But interaction was tightly controlled – limited to six, two-hour sessions, including meetings in a communal hall and private one-on-one time without TV cameras.
North Korea is willing to make cross-border family reunions a regular event, the chairman of the North Korean Red Cross said Saturday.
Many had not seen their loved ones since they became separated when the peninsula was divided at the end of the Korean War from 1950 to 1953.
A North Korean spokesman said the South fired at its vessel conducting a “routine” operation, calling it a “serious provocation” and warned such action could spark military confrontation and refuel tensions on the Korean peninsula.
In this Friday, October 23, 2015 photo, South Korean Lee Cheon-wu, a…
Almost 20 years ago, Mrs Lee Geung Ja was working the night shift at a factory in North Korea when an accident with melting plastic left her face scarred and discoloured.
Families of South Korean abductees have asked their government to take up the abduction issue when a bilateral summit with Japan is held in November, according to Choi Song-ryong, head of the South Korean Families of Abducted and Detained in North Korea. “They were all in the North”, said Kim Choon-bok, who has been living in this village with her 92-year-old mother for decades.
On Sunday, North Korea reiterated its demand that an existing armistice agreement that ended the Korean War be replaced with a peace treaty with the United States.
North Korea argues that the line, which extends into the sea from the Military Demarcation Line (DML), should be further south.
North Koreans live mostly in poverty, enduring frequent food shortages.
Of almost 130,000 applicants from South Korea alone, around half have now passed away.
Reports revealed that this was not the first incident that the South Korean navy fired warning shots against North Korea for crossing the NLL.
The South Koreans were chosen using a computerised lottery system from among thousands who applied.
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The Jung family was one of two families who participated in the second round of reunions whose family members were kidnapped by the North Korean regime. Most of the people were in their 80s and 90s.
