Your trusted source

North Korea has agreed to Red Cross talks with South Korea to discuss the reunion of families separated during the 1950-53 Korean War, a South Korean official said on Saturday, setting up the first meeting under a recent accord aimed at defusing tensions, Reuters reports.

The accord reached on Tuesday pulled the rivals back from the brink of an armed conflict. The two sides agreed to work towards resuming the meetings of families, an emotional issue given the advancing years of surviving family members.

An official from the Unification Ministry said in Seoul a message had been sent on Saturday in which North Korea’s Red Cross accepted the South’s proposal to meet on September 7 at the Panmunjom truce village that sits on their heavily armed border.
Nearly 130,000 South Koreans looking for family members in the North have registered with the government in Seoul. About 66,000 are still alive, with most aged 70 or more, according to Unification Ministry data.