Koreas agree to hold family reunions as scheduled this month

PANMUNJOM, North Korea, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Negotiators for North and South Korea agreed Friday to hold reunions of families separated during the Korean War later in February as planned, an official said.

The agreement was struck during high-level talks at the border village of Panmunjom that separates North Korea from South Korea, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

South Korea's chief delegate, Kim Kyou-hyun, said the two Koreas also agreed to stop making slanderous statements against each other, work to boost mutual confidence and make efforts to improve their relations.

Kim said another round of high-level talks would be conducted.

"It is meaningful that the two Koreas took a first step toward development of inter-Korean relations based on confidence," Kim said. "I expect the two Koreas to continue to build confidence through dialogue in the future."

Millions of Koreans remain separated from family members since the conflict ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty, in 1953, Yonhap said. The reunions have become a humanitarian effort because most of the separated family members are in their 70s and 80s.

During Wednesday's round of discussions, the first high-level talks in seven years, North Korea demanded that South Korea reschedule joint military exercises with the United States until after the family reunions end. Seoul rejected the request.

The military exercises partly overlap with a new round of reunions of separated families scheduled for a North Korean mountain resort Feb. 20-25.

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said it was inappropriate to tie the military exercises with the reunion.

"The United States does not believe that it is appropriate to link a humanitarian issue such as [family] reunification with any other issue," Kerry said during a joint news conference with his South Korean counterpart in Seoul.

Family reunions -- the last was in 2010 -- are considered a key measure of relations between the nations, the New York Times said. Because communication between citizens of the two countries is not allowed, the occasional government-arranged reunions for families separated by the war are basically the only chance relatives have to see each other.

A South Korea advance team is to travel to the resort Saturday to prepare for the reunions, said Kim Eui-do, a spokesman for the Unification Ministry in Seoul.