North Korea Allows Reunions to Restart

By EVAN RAMSTAD

SEOUL -- North Korea promised Friday to release a four-person South Korean fishing crew and agreed to restart reunions between its citizens and their relatives in South Korea, the South's Unification Ministry said.

The actions are another sign that North Korea is moving toward friendlier dealings with the outside world, after relations reached a tense extreme in recent months.

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Associated Press

Lim Jae-shil, an 85-year-old South Korean citizen, gives a cheer Friday at Red Cross headquarters in Seoul after he was selected as a candidate for a reunion with members of his family in North Korea. Pyongyang has agreed to restart some family gatherings.

In late July, North Korea detained the crew of a fishing boat that strayed across the maritime border in the East Sea, or Sea of Japan. South Korean officials immediately sought their release, but had heard no word from the North.

The matter arose as Red Cross officials from the two countries met this week to discuss restarting the reunions, which Pyongyang stopped last year when South Korea tightened its policy on economic assistance to the North.

After the three-day Red Cross meeting this week, North Korea agreed to a series of reunions from Sept. 26 to Oct. 1. The reunions, involving 100 people from each country, will occur at a resort near Mount Kumgang, a scenic park area just north of the inter-Korean border on the countries' east coast.

At the Red Cross meeting, South Korean officials also tried to discuss prisoners of war from the Korean War in the 1950s who haven't been allowed to return to the South, as well as missing South Korean citizens believed to have been abducted by the North. North Korean officials declined to talk about those issues.

The two Koreas first agreed in 2000 to hold reunions for families divided when the war began in 1950. The most recent reunion occurred in October 2007.

North Korea halted the meetings in 2008, after the South reversed a policy of unconditional economic assistance to the North and insisted that Pyongyang make progress toward giving up its pursuit of nuclear weapons as a condition for aid.

Tensions increased further when a North Korean soldier killed a South Korean tourist at Mount Kumgang in July 2008. In March, North Korea detained a South Korean businessman without explanation. Later, it sought more money to preserve an industrial park run jointly by the two countries, and in July, it detained the fishing crew.

This month, in a step toward easing strained relations, North Korea freed the detained South Korean businessman. The North also expanded an agreement with his employer, Hyundai Asan, to create a resort at Mount Baektu, on the border of North Korea and China. Hyundai Asan also operates the industrial park and the resort in Mount Kumgang.

Seoul initially balked at the Hyundai Asan agreement, saying it was a private deal and calling for official state-to-state negotiations with the North. But a week ago, North Korea took another step, sending a delegation to the funeral of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and holding meetings with South Korean officials including current President Lee Myung-bak. For Pyongyang, it was an unusual move: The North prefers to negotiate through intermediaries, and such talks often fail to produce concrete results.

Pyongyang also reached out to the U.S. earlier in August, freeing two American journalists it detained in March.

Write to Evan Ramstad at evan.ramstad@wsj.com