Koreas resume reunions for war-torn families

North Korea said Sunday it has agreed to South Korea's proposal to resume reunions for families separated since the 1950-53 war, in another apparent sign of easing tensions in one of the world's most tense military flashpoints.

The North has agreed to hold the next reunion during a Korean holiday on Sept. 19 as suggested by the South, Pyongyang's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said through state media.

Millions of Koreans were left separated by the war, which sealed the peninsula's division. Most have died without having had a chance to meet family members last seen six decades ago.

"Now is the time for the North and the South to make joint efforts for the improvement of the North-South ties and peace and common prosperity on the Korean peninsula," said the official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA.

If the tightly controlled reunions are held, they would be the first in nearly three years, with separated family members falling in number due to old age.

Pyongyang and Seoul will arrange details of the event, including dates and venue, through working-level talks Friday, KCNA said. South Korea's Unification Ministry said it took the North's offer positively, but asked for a change of venue.

"We would like the venue of meeting to be at the truce village of Panmunjom as we initially proposed," ministry spokesperson Kim Hyung-suk told reporters. The village is on the heavily guarded border, known as the Demilitarized Zone, separating the two Koreas. 

About 72,000 South Koreans -- nearly half of them over the age of 80 -- are waiting for a rare chance to take part in the reunion, for which officials select only up to a few hundred participants each time.

At the reunions, North and South Koreans typically meet in the North for two or three days before the South Koreans head home again. For those too infirm to travel, reunions via video conferencing have been arranged in recent years and are slated to take place again this year around Oct. 4, KCNA said.

Cross-border relations have showed signs of improving recently after months of high tensions. Last week, the two sides agreed to work on reopening a jointly-run industrial complex inside the North, which was abruptly closed in April at the height of tensions, when the North threatened nuclear attack on the South and the United States.

Some 28,500 American troops remain stationed in South Korea, a strategically crucial U.S. ally in East Asia.

Pyongyang also proposed Sunday to discuss resuming South Korean tourist visits to Diamond Mountain, a resort in the North, promising to talk about Seoul's key concerns such as the safety of its travelers.

"The North Korean intention is obvious. It is saying it wants to exchange the resumption of the Diamond Mountain tours with the family reunions," said Lim Eul Chul, a professor at South Korea's Kyungnam University.

The resort was the first major inter-Korean cooperation project, during which thousands of South Koreans visited the Seoul-funded resort in the North between 1998 and 2008.

The South suspended the tours -- an important source of hard currency for the impoverished North -- after a North Korean soldier in 2008 shot dead a female tourist who strayed into a restricted zone.

Park Hyeong-Jung, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, cautioned that the recent series of conciliatory gestures from Pyongyang would not thaw frozen ties overnight.

"But this will at least open a door for low-level cooperation for a while, with both sides cautiously showing goodwill towards each other," he said.

Al Jazeera and wire services