Ministry reviewing North visit request by families group

Unification Ministry spokesman Koo Byoung-sam speaks at a regular press briefing at the Central Government Complex in Jongno District, central Seoul on Monday. [YONHAP]

The Unification Ministry said it is reviewing an application by a local civic group to visit North Korea to discuss the issue of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

The North-South Separated Families Association submitted a document on Friday seeking the ministry’s approval for a plan by its members to visit the North, after receiving an invitation from a North Korean organization, according to the ministry.

In a phone call with the Korea JoongAng Daily on Tuesday, the association’s president, Yoo Jae-bok, said the group sent a request to meet with the North’s representatives over the issue and received the invitation from a North Korean group under the United Front Department, the unit in charge of relations with the South, in November last year.

Yoo declined to identify when his association sent the request and which North Korean entity sent the invitation, which included guarantees of safety for three representatives from his group and promised to assume the cost of their visit.

The civic group was established in 2011 under the auspices of the Unification Ministry and has not previously sent representatives to the North.

Unification Ministry spokesman Koo Byoung-sam told reporters at a regular press briefing on Monday that the North Korean entity that sent the invitation was not the usual North Korean organization that handles inter-Korean family reunions.

“The government is closely looking into overall details, including the characteristics of the North Korean entity and its reliability,” Koo said.

Requests for government permission to visit the North are usually processed within seven days under the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Act, but it remains unclear if the association will receive an answer within that time frame.

Reunions for families separated by the war are usually handled by the two Koreas’ Red Cross associations.

The two Koreas have held 21 rounds of family reunion events since the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.

The last reunion was held in August 2018, amid a temporary thaw in inter-Korean relations. Reunions have not resumed amid renewed tensions on the peninsula over the North’s escalated weapons testing.

More than 10,000 South Koreans on the Red Cross registry of separated members died over the past three years while waiting for a chance to be reunited with their relatives in the North.

Almost 66 percent of those still alive on the list are over the age of 80.

While South Korea selects separated family members for reunions using a lottery-based system, the North is believed to choose its participants based on their perceived loyalty to the regime.

Last week, the Unification Ministry said it would employ all means available to resolve the issue of families separated by the war and prioritize identifying whether their relatives in North Korea are still alive.

The ministry said it plans to focus on resuming reunions and other forms of exchanges, including meetings held via livestream video, for separated family members.

The ministry said it would also seek to resolve other issues stemming from the division of the peninsula, such as captured South Korean soldiers who were not repatriated to the South through prisoner exchanges under the armistice agreement, as well as South Koreans who were abducted to the North in the post-war period.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]