The North Koreans like to use these family reunions to appeal to the emotions of South Koreans which then makes them useful bargaining chips by threatening to cancel them if they don’t get what they want from the ROK government:
A South Korean woman talks with a Red Cross official to see if she can meet with her family in North Korea in this undated file photo. (Yonhap)
South Korea began a process Monday to select those who will meet their long-separated family members in North Korea in late August.
The two Koreas agreed to hold their first family reunion event in nearly three years at the North’s Mount Kumgang resort from Aug. 20-26, a follow-up to the April 27 summit deal.
It would enable 100 South Korean people, mostly elderly ones, to get together with their families across the border, decades after being separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but these reunions have also in the past been a cottage industry for the regime to make money by holding them at the Kumgang Resort on the east coast of North Korea. I suspect the regime also is using the reunions to promote the resort in its efforts to get sanctions dropped and tourism reopened to Gumgang resort and other nearby facilities.
So the separated families get to meet for couple of days at the North Korean barbed wired resort. And then they separate forever again.
The South Koreans still eat all this up. If they are truly interested in reunion, they would work to give the chance to permanently reunite, rather than for just couple of days before they separate again.
Rascal1212
5 years ago
I wonder how much money KJU will charge SK families to become “bargaining chips”?
AppeasingNorthKorea
5 years ago
Rascal1212, ask Moon Jae-in that question. He probably knows exactly how much.
J6Junkie
5 years ago
Moon opened the Bank of Korea for his master. This is just an occasional treat for public consumption.
So the separated families get to meet for couple of days at the North Korean barbed wired resort. And then they separate forever again.
The South Koreans still eat all this up. If they are truly interested in reunion, they would work to give the chance to permanently reunite, rather than for just couple of days before they separate again.
I wonder how much money KJU will charge SK families to become “bargaining chips”?
Rascal1212, ask Moon Jae-in that question. He probably knows exactly how much.
Moon opened the Bank of Korea for his master. This is just an occasional treat for public consumption.