Pyongyang rejects Seoul’s family reunion proposal

North Korea has rejected a proposal made by South Korea to resume family reunions for those affected by the division of the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea’s KCNA official news agency quoted the country’s main body for inter-Korean affairs, the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK), as saying it had questions regarding the South’s sincerity.

“How could separated families comfortably meet for a reunion in the face of ceaseless war practices staged in the South?” the CPRK said, referring to joint Washington-Seoul military exercises.

During her New Year press conference on January 6, South Korean President Park Geun-Hye made the proposal for a reunion to be held around January 31.

She also said her country would expand exchanges and increase humanitarian aid to North Korea.

Seoul said it felt “regret” that Pyongyang had rejected the offer and mistakenly linked a humanitarian issue with annual military exercises it conducted with the Washington.

On August 23, 2013, North and South Korea agreed to hold a round of family reunions, which allows 100 people from each side to meet their relatives from the other side at the Diamond Mountain resort in southeastern North Korea from September 25 to September 30.

Pyongyang canceled the reunion last September, saying “hostility” from Seoul’s side had been the reason for the cancelation.

The Korean War started in 1950 and lasted for three years. Millions of Koreans were separated as a result of the conflict.