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SEOUL: South and North Korea agreed Friday to restart a reunion programme for families divided by their 1950-53 conflict, in the latest sign of an easing of tensions after more than a year of hostility.
The reunions will be held from September 26 to October 1, the two sides said in a joint statement on their third day of talks. They will be the first for two years.
The hardline communist North suspended the programme after a conservative South Korean government took office in February 2008 and announced a tougher line on cross-border relations.
"The South and the North will continue to cooperate on the issue of separated families and other humanitarian issues involving the Red Cross," the statement said after talks at the North's Mount Kumgang resort where families will meet.
In a programme organised by each side's Red Cross, families will meet just before Korea's Chuseok (Thanksgiving) day, one of the year's two most important holidays.
Yonhap news agency said earlier the South had withdrawn its demand that the statement refer to South Korean prisoners of war and to civilians believed kidnapped by the North during the Cold War era.
Seoul says 494 of its people, mostly fishermen, were seized in the decades following the war and more than 500 prisoners of war were never sent home in 1953.
Pyongyang insists it is not holding anyone against their will even though some abductees have escaped to the South.
"I believe our position has been sufficiently explained to the North through these talks," unification ministry spokesman Chun Hae-Sung said in Seoul.
"Here, we will focus on the most pressing issue of arranging the Chuseok reunion, but our efforts will continue with patience."
Seoul also dropped demands for the reunions to be held on a regular basis so that many more elderly people can meet loved ones before they die.
The North and South agreed to select 100 people on each side and locate their relatives across the border.
Tens of thousands of families have been separated by barbed wire and minefields since the war. There are no civilian mail or telephone services between the two countries.
The reunions normally last for three days.
The programme began in earnest after the first inter-Korean summit in 2000 eased tensions between the historical enemies.
More than 16,000 Koreans from both sides of the border have held face-to-face meetings since then while 3,200 others communicated through video links.
The North's leader Kim Jong-Il and a visiting Seoul business chief agreed this month the reunions should resume around Thanksgiving. They also agreed to restart tourist trips to the North by South Koreans.
In another conciliatory gesture Kim last weekend sent a team to Seoul to mourn ex-president Kim Dae-Jung and to hold talks with current leader Lee Myung-Bak.
The overtures follow a year of sabre-rattling, including missile launches and a nuclear test this year which brought tougher United Nations sanctions.
The North is also trying to ease tensions with Washington. This month it freed two US reporters after ex-president Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang.
It has expressed willingness for talks with Washington to end the nuclear standoff.
US special envoy to North Korea Stephen Bosworth will travel to Asian capitals soon but not to Pyongyang, the State Department said Thursday.
- AFP/yb
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