From Yonhap
11/6/2006
Seoul to resume flood aid for N. Korea if separated family reunions restart
South Korea may resume its humanitarian assistance for impoverished North Korea following an improvement in inter-Korean relations, the head of South Korea’s National Red Cross said Monday.
The Red Cross chief’s remarks come amid international efforts to punish the communist nation for its nuclear test on Oct. 9. Pyongyang agreed last week to return to international negotiations over its nuclear weapons program.
“I believe the Red Cross societies of the North and the South would be able to discuss the issue of resuming shipments of (South Korea’s) remaining flood recovery aid to the North once the most desperate humanitarian issue (between the two Koreas), which is the issue of separated family reunions, is resolved,” Han Wan-sang told reporters.
Han’s remarks came partly in response to an alleged offer by North Korea’s No. 2 official Kim Yong-nam to hold Red Cross talks to discuss the resumption of separated family reunions. The offer was made public by a group of legislators and officials from South Korea’s minor opposition Democratic Labor Party (DLP) who visited Pyongyang last week.
North Korea unilaterally called off a scheduled round of the Red Cross-sponsored programs to reunite families separated by the division of the Koreas in July. The cancellation came after Seoul’s suspension of its regular humanitarian assistance, mostly rice and fertilizer, for the communist nation following the North’s launch of seven ballistic missiles earlier that month.
Analysts here believed the North would demand the resumption of Seoul’s humanitarian aid for the communist state in return for holding a new, or delayed, round of separated family reunions as the North Korean official, who serves as president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, was quoted as telling the visiting DLP officials that the Koreas must jointly work to resolve various humanitarian issues between the two.
Han said the reunions must be held without any conditions, also adding that the resumption of his country’s regular economic assistance for the North is a political issue.
He, however, said the sides could discuss resuming at least part of Seoul’s humanitarian assistance to the North at the next round of the separated family reunions when, or if, they are held.
“But issues that can be discussed from a humanitarian perspective can be discussed while pursuing other humanitarian projects,” he said.
The South Korean government pledged to give the one-time flood recovery aid, consisting of some US$50 million worth of rice, medicine and construction equipment, to the North in August, but has delayed its shipments since the North’s Oct. 9 nuclear test.
The Unification Ministry refused to comment on the North’s alleged offer, saying it has yet to receive any official report from the opposition party or an offer from the communist state.
The Koreas have held 14 rounds of separated family reunions since the historic inter-Korean summit in 2000, but over 90,000 people from the South alone remain separated from their loved ones since the end of 1950-53 Korea War.
The countries officially remain in a state of war as the Korean War ended with a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.
