North and South Korean family members meet during the separated family reunions at Mount Kumgang resort, North Korea, October 20, 2015.
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Pyongyang threatened to cancel the event after South Korean President Park Geun Hye called North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme a serious threat to peace.
(Korea Pool Photo via AP).
There are rules about what they can discuss, with family members from the South given a guide by the Red Cross, who help organise the meetings. Hundreds of elderly Koreans from divi…
“Obviously there is a lot of politics involved in this controversy; but there is something even deeper at stake, the integrity of history itself”, said John Delury, an associate professor of Chinese history who is among a number of academics at Seoul’s Yonsei University to have publicly protested the plan.
However, families from South who attended on the event last February had a very different take. All of the face-to-face reunions that have taken place in the past 15 years happen in North Korea. “I want to ask if he can recognize me”, Kim said. The reports come a day after South Korea’s defense minister Han Min-koo held rare talks with his Japanese counterpart, Gen Nakatani on Tuesday.
After so many years of waiting, the reunions are cruelly short.
South Koreans who have not seen their relatives for 65 years can be seen getting ready to cross the border into North Korea in this emotional footage.
“Father, it’s me, your son”, Chae Hee-yang, 65, from the South told Chae Hoon-sik, 88, from the North, according to the South Korean news outlet Yonhap. Jeon said he awkwardly tried to change the subject to family topics at the time.
Jeon said they later went to a hotel room to get away from reporters and TV cameras.
The North Koreans prepared a standard gift of various liquors and scarves. “Didn’t you tell me you had a lot to say?” “I still can’t believe it”.
They were to meet their 141 DPRK relatives at about 3.30 p.m. for two hours in the first phase of the reunion.
“We should have been allowed to sleep in the same room”, Jang said.
“Realistically, we know this is the only and last chance we have for a meeting”.
“They’ve changed so much”. The declaration caused speculations that the North might conduct another nuclear test explosion. However, that ended when a North Korean soldier shot a South Korean tourist to death in 2008.
South Korean officials had warned in advance that a substantial slice of any money handed over would be “appropriated” by the authorities in the North.
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About 390 South Koreans traveled Tuesday to the mountain resort to reunite with their relatives for three days.
