The first reunions in three years of families separated by the Korean War are to take place September 25-30, North and South Korea agreed Friday.
The members of 100 families are to be invited to meet in the North Korean resort at Mount Kumgang, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said after talks between the Red Cross organisations of both countries.
The meeting was the latest development in the easing of tensions between the two neighbours that peaked in the spring after North Korea conducted its third nuclear test in February and then threated the South and the United States with missile and nuclear attacks.
Thousands of families were divided by the 1950-53 Korean War and the division of the Korean Peninsula. Contact across the border through letters, emails or phone calls is usually impossible.
The two Koreas remain technically at war after an armistice and not a peace treaty ended the war.
Friday’s meeting at the border village of Panmunjom was organised after North Korea said Sunday that it was ready to allow contacts between divided families to resume during Chuseok, the national harvest festival, which falls on September 19. Two days earlier, South Korean President Park Geun Hye called for the resumption of reunions.
The last round of family reunions took place in 2010. The two Koreas have allowed temporary reunions of selected divided families 18 times since a 2000 summit.