North, South Korea agree to work to find lost families

Family members long separated by the Korean demilitarized zone meet during an August reunion

September 30, 2000
Web posted at: 10:13 AM HKT (0213 GMT)

SEOUL (Reuters) -- North and South Korea agreed to work to find long-lost families and exchange letters from the end of the year, and set their fourth round of ministerial talks for November 28 to December 1, Seoul's Unification Ministry said on Saturday.

The site for the fourth round of talks will be decided later, Kim Hyung-ki, assistant minister for unification policy, told a news conference broadcast live nationally.

"We agreed to make all-out cooperations to solve the matter of separated families in an earlier time, including finding the relatives, exchanging letters and setting up a reunion place from the end of this year," Kim said.

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North and South Korean officials have held a series of meetings since a watershed summit between their leaders in Pyongyang in June.

There were also emotional reunions in their capitals of families separated by the Korean War.

Wrapping up the third round of cabinet talks, held in the South's resort island of Cheju from September 27 to 30, the two Koreas agreed to establish a joint economic consultative body to broaden two-way economic cooperation.

"The South proposed holding regular good-will soccer games between Seoul and Pyongyang and the North answered it would consider it positively," Kim added.

Defense ministers from North and South Korea met in Cheju earlier this week for their first ever talks, vowing to work for peace but skirting more substantive issues. They did agree to meet again next month in North Korea.

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