North, South Korea agree to resume family reunions

North and South Korea agreed Wednesday to jump-start a stalled reunification program that would see families separated by the 1950–53 Korean War brought back together for a brief reunion. The move is seen as a small step toward easing tensions between the two nations, which in recent years have struggled to cooperate on even the most basic trust-building measures.

Officials from both countries met in the border village of Panmunjom, where they decided the reunions would be held Feb. 20–25 at North Korea's Mount Kumgang resort, said the South Korean Unification Ministry, which is responsible for cross-border affairs.

If the February reunion is held as scheduled, it will be the first such event in more than three years.

The two countries had agreed to hold a reunion last September, but Pyongyang canceled the event just four days before its scheduled start, citing "hostility" from the South. 

The Korean War left millions of families divided, with free private travel across the border and communication, including phone calls, banned. More than 70,000 South Koreans have been seeking to meet lost relatives at family reunions. The successful ones are chosen by lottery.

About 22,000 Koreans have had brief family reunions — 18,000 in person and the others by video — during periods of detente, but no one has had a second chance to meet relatives.

Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor of North Korean Studies at Seoul's Korea University, predicted that the North would use the reunion as a bargaining chip.

"Rather than canceling the event again, it may try to extract concessions, like a scaling down of the joint military exercises or an easing of South Korean sanctions," Yoo said.

Upcoming U.S.-South Korean military drills, which are due to begin at the end of February, are what make the decision to resume reunifications particularly surprising.

The annual drills are always a diplomatic flashpoint on the Korean Peninsula, and resulted last year in an extended period of heightened military tensions.

North Korea has recently ratcheted down its usual harsh rhetoric against the South and has made a series of conciliatory gestures — a departure from a year ago, when it threatened Washington and Seoul with nuclear war and vowed to restart its production of fuel for nuclear weapons.

In recent weeks, North Korean diplomats have given rare media interviews and press conferences that have reiterated calls from Pyongyang's top ruling bodies to end the annual military drills.

While North Korea has altered its approach and tone, analysts say its positions haven’t changed.

"There is no more seriousness behind this offer than others Pyongyang has advanced," Andrea Berger, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London who interacts regularly with North Korean officials, told Reuters. 

"North Korea has not yet made clear that the significant military restraint it is demanding on the South Korean side would be matched by military restraint on its own part," Berger said.

North Korea's intentions are always difficult to read, and the relative lack of understanding surrounding Kim Jong Un, the third of his family to rule the country, has made the situation even more complex.

But the impending war drills could provide an excuse for North Korea to call off the reunions, said Berger.

Kwak In-su, a researcher at the Seoul-based Institute for National Strategy and a former North Korean spy who fled to the South in 1995, said North Korea's tone was a "mixed bag." 

"Their tone this year is different. They're saying, 'Please don't do this,' as opposed to in the past when they threatened military action if drills went ahead," he said. "They're putting on a show, but at the same time they really want some changes." 

Al Jazeera and wire services