South, N. Korea fail to reunion case

South, N. Korea fail to reunion case

SEOUL (AFP): South and North Korean negotiators holding talks
in the North on reuniting families separated for more than half a
century failed on Wednesday to settle a thorny issue of a
rejected entry to a South Korean journalist, a South Korean pool
report said.

Kim In-Koo from Seoul's conservative daily Chosun Ilbo, which
is critical of the North's communist policies, was on his way
home on Wednesday evening after the North's refusal to permit him
entry, Chosun said.

The reporter had to stay on a South Korean cruise ship in
waters off the North's scenic Mount Kumkang, the venue for the
ongoing Red Cross talks.

Two rounds of "unofficial contacts" between South and North
Korean Red Cross officials failed on Wednesday to persuade the
North to allow him to join five other South Korean journalists
covering the talks.

Red Cross officials from both sides of the divided peninsula
began four days of talks on family reunions at Kumkang on
Tuesday, were in recess Wednesday and will resume talks on
Thursday, the pool report said.

The South delegation, led by Park Ki-Ryun, proposed Tuesday
that a 161-member group -- 100 separated relatives, 30 support
staff and 30 journalists -- visit the North, it said.

But the North delegation, led by Choe Sung-Chol, demanded the
number be reduced to 151 by limiting the number of journalists to
20.

Although the North and South delegations were upbeat after the
first day, vowing they would make progress, they faced another
stumbling block over the repatriation of North Korean spies in
the south.

Seoul has suggested that the former North Korean spies, mostly
released from prison, be returned after the family reunions, but
Pyongyang is insisting repatriation comes first.

Seoul officials have expressed hope that the family reunions
will not be a one-time event but will continue on a regular
basis. But the North's reaction was not immediately available up
until Wednesday.

The South would propose setting up a "reunion house" for
separated families at the inter-Korean border village of
Panmunjom and regularizing reunions at the talks, Seoul's
JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said earlier.

South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung and North Korean leader
Kim Jong-Il have agreed to arrange meetings for separated
families around Aug. 15, the 55th anniversary of Korea being
freed from Japanese colonial rule.

The agreement, reached during their historic summit in
Pyongyang earlier this month, also called for a settlement of
"the question of unswerving communists serving prison sentences"
but without a specific date set for their repatriation.

According to the Seoul government, some 7.6 million South
Koreans have relatives in the North. Most have had no news since
the division of the Korean peninsula in 1945 and the ensuing
1950-53 Korean War.