Koreas resume family reunion discussions

SEOUL, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Negotiators for North and South Korea resumed discussions Friday on ways to reunite families separated by the Korean War, a South Korean official said.

Two previous rounds of discussions bogged down over a disagreement about the reunion venue, with North Korea wanting cross-border tours to resume before considering using a South Korea-financed facility for the reunions, South Korea news agency Yonhap reported.

"No particularly different position has been discussed yet," a Seoul official said of the talks Friday.

The talks resumed a day after the countries failed to progress in their first meeting of military officials in two years, Yonhap reported.

Tensions have been high between the Koreas since South Korea blamed North Korea for the May sinking of a warship in which 46 sailors died. Pyongyang denies any role in the incident.

Since late August when North Korean leader Kim Jong Il visited China, Pyongyang has been making conciliatory overtures to Seoul, including the release of the crew of a South Korean fishing boat and proposing the reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

A member of the South Korean delegation told Yonhap officials were skeptical about the sincerity of the gestures, saying North Korea may be trying to temporarily improve relations prior to the emergence of Kim's third son and heir apparent, Kim Jong Un. The younger Kim was named vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party, appointed to its central committee and given the rank of a four-star general, state media said. Kim Jong Il, 68, thought to be in poor health, was re-elected as party leader during a recent Workers' Party convention.