The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, an organ of North Korea’s ruling Workers' Party, said it would be difficult for the two sides to hold a reunion of separated family members as South Korea and the United States plan to hold an annual joint military exercise from late February to early March.
The committee was apparently referring to the Key Resolve military exercise.
In addition, it would be inappropriate to hold separated family reunions in winter since most of the people separated between the two Koreas are elderly citizens, the committee said in a telegram sent to South Korea’s Ministry of Unification.
The committee argued that Seoul’s confrontational policy on Pyongyang remains unchanged, pointing out that South Korean President Park Geun-hye called for the denuclearization of North Korea and mentioned about the execution of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, once seen as a major power in the communist state.
However, the committee said the two Koreas can discuss the issue sometime in the near future.
“The two sides can sit down together (to discuss the matter) in good season, if no more things happen in the South and the South is willing to discuss our proposals, too,” it said, without giving a specific date for the unions.
The North has called for inter-Korean talks on the resumption of a joint tourism program. Tours to the Mt. Geumgang resort in the North have been suspended since Park Wang-ja, a South Korean tourist, was shut to death by a North Korean soldier on July 11, 2008. The 53-year-old housewife was shut dead after she reportedly wandered into a restricted area.
The tour program was a source of hard currency for North Korea.
The North’s rejection came three days after South Korean President Park Geun-hye proposed a reunion of family members separated between the two divided halves around the Lunar New Year holiday to help ease tensions on the peninsula. The Lunar New Year’s Day falls on Jan. 30.
In her New Year’s press conference Monday, Park made the proposal, welcoming North Korean leader Kim’s New Year speech calling for better relations between the two Koreas.
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