Wednesday, 06/03/2019 09:19 (GMT+7)
The United States (UN) Security Council has granted sanctions exemptions to enable video reunions for families separated by the 1950 - 1953 Korean War.
(Photo: Kyodo/VNA)
The council made the decision last week to allow relevant equipment to be sent to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), paving the way for the two Koreas to hold the reunions as agreed by their leaders last year, the official said.
The equipment at the video conferencing rooms needed repair, as it had not been used since the last such event in 2007. Adopted in 2005, the video reunions have been held seven times.
Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to jointly recover the remains of soldiers killed during the Korean War at a pilot site in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) from April 1st to October 31st in a comprehensive military agreement signed in September last year.
The reunion program began in 1985, stalled, and then got underway at the turn of the millennium. In all, more than 17,000 people of the Republic of Korea (RoK) have taken part in more than 20 meetings, seeing their relatives in person or over video link. But more than 130,000 have registered as members of divided families since the program began, and more than half of them died before getting to see their relatives again. Many on the waiting list are older than 90.
The two Koreas also completed the destruction of 20 guard posts located within one kilometer of each other in the DMZ on November 30th, and began an agreed to suspension of military exercises near the border and the operation of a designated no-fly zone along the military demarcation line (MDL) on November 1st.
The move was part of preliminary steps towards implementing the inter-Korean military agreement, made in September 2018.
The two Koreas had agreed to complete the demolition work by the end of November and conduct verification in December last year./.
Compiled by BTA