Koreas agree to restart family reunion scheme

North and South Korea agreed today to resume reunions of families split across the border for more than 50 years, during their first high-level talks since Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test.

Reunions over a video link between the Koreas will be held this month, with face-to-face meetings set for May, a South Korean official said.

The meeting in Pyongyang between the two Koreas is the first such Cabinet-level dialogue in seven months, enabled by the North’s February 13 pledge at international arms talks to take steps toward abandoning its nuclear weapons programme.

The reunions are a highly emotional issue between the North and South as many of those hoping to see relatives are elderly. Millions of Koreans were separated following the division of the Korean peninsula in 1945 and the 1950-53 Korean War.

The North had been expected to agree this week to restarting the reunions, which were put on hold last year after the North’s July missile tests that led the South to halt humanitarian aid to Pyongyang, such as rice and fertiliser.