Seoul:
In a surprise gesture of reconciliation that could ease tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula, North Korea proposed to South Korea on Saturday that they arrange reunions of families separated by a war six decades ago.
Family reunions have usually been proposed by the South, not the North. The North's initiative showed how the humanitarian program is used as a chip in the complex diplomacy surrounding the peninsula.
But the South has refused to resume aid shipments or six-nation talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons development before North Korea apologizes for the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which killed 46 sailors. The North has denied involvement in the sinking, but the South has insisted on the North making gestures to mollify South Koreans.
The proposal came a day before Stephen W. Bosworth, Washington's top envoy on North Korea, was to arrive in Seoul in the first leg of a regional trip aimed at resuming the nuclear talks.
South Korea was "favorably" reviewing the offer for immediate discussions of family reunions so the reunions could take place in North Korea's Diamond Mountain resort around the Sept. 22 Chuseok fall-harvest holiday, a government statement said.
About 20,000 Koreans have been temporarily reunited since the two Koreas held their first summit meeting in 2000. The last such reunions were a year ago, and thousands of older South Koreans wait for a chance to meet relatives not seen for 60 years.
The scenes of teary people hugging long-lost parents and children have previously helped sway South Korean opinion in favor of engaging the North. Meanwhile, North Korea has used the reunions to win economic concessions from the South.
Although the new proposal is a sharp departure from the North's recent invectives against South Korea, it remains unclear whether the South considers it enough to change a stance hardened by the warship's sinking.
"We wonder about the North's motive behind this unexpected proposal, but whatever it might be, we must say we welcome the offer," Ahn Hyoung-hwan, a governing party spokesman in Seoul, told reporters. Opposition parties also welcomed the initiative.
China, the North's main ally and the leader of the six-nation nuclear talks, urged both Koreas to shift from confrontation to dialogue by rejoining the talks. Although Washington stood by the South, a crucial Asian ally, in the standoff over the ship sinking, and bowed to keep sanctions on the North, it is also looking for ways to bring North Korea back to the talks, a central part of its global nonproliferation efforts.
"We believe it would be critical for there to be some element of reconciliation between the North and South for any process to move forward," Kurt M. Campbell, a United States assistant secretary of state, said Thursday.
The six-nation talks were last held in December 2008. South Korean officials have voiced a deep skepticism of the talks. Without a concrete North Korean commitment to denuclearization, any such talks would simply give North Korea a tool to weaken an international resolve to enforce sanctions on the North while buying time to perfect its nuclear arsenal, they said.
After making various threats, North Korea has recently begun offering conciliatory gestures. Last month, it freed an imprisoned American during former President Jimmy Carter's diplomatic trip to Pyongyang. It also released a seven-man crew of a South Korean fishing boat seized a month ago. The North's proposal for reunions came as the South was considering how much aid it should provide for North Koreans devastated by floods.
In an interview with Russia 24-TV on Friday during a visit to Russia, President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea offered to build a second joint industrial park in North Korea if the North changed its policy.