President Park Geun-hye of South Korea proposed on Thursday that the Koreas should once again begin arranging family reunions for families torn apart during the Korean War. This news comes just a day after North and South Korea agreed to reopen the Gaeseong industrial park.
Park, in a speech on South Korea’s National Liberation Day, stated that "[t]he South and North have been separated for 68 years. Now it's time to open an age of peace and cooperation," Xinhua News Agency reports.
According to The Korea Herald, the two countries had been holding these reunions around important holidays since 2000, and halted this tradition in 2010 after the North’s alleged sinking of the South Korean navy corvette Cheonan, as well as the bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island earlier that year.
Reviving these family gatherings seems a real possibility now that the Koreas have agreed to reopen Gaeseong. After six rounds of talks, North Korea finally accepted the provision yesterday that the operation of the industrial park “will not be affected by political situations under any circumstance,” The Boston Globe writes. The Koreas will also set up a joint panel to discuss both resuming operations and compensating South Korean companies for damages incurred after North Korea pulled its workers out in April, blaming joint US-South Korean military practices.