UpdateNorth Korea calls off much-awaited family reunion plan with South
Government blames Seoul for cancellation, leaving separated families disappointed
North Korea has indefinitely postponed reunions for families separated since the Korean war, just days before they were to resume, leaving relatives "disappointed beyond description".
The highly symbolic and emotional meetings of selected families from the North and South, separated for six decades by the 1950-53 Korean war, would have been the first reunions in three years.
The North's Korean Central News Agency quoted the government as blaming Seoul's "hostile" policy for the last-minute cancellation, singling out the South's military exercises with the United States and a recent crackdown on allegedly pro-Pyongyang leftists.
Analysts believe the move is designed to place pressure on the South to resume cross-border tours to a scenic resort that is an important source of revenue for the North's cash-strapped communist regime.
"We postpone the impending reunions of separated families until a normal atmosphere is created for talks and negotiations to be able to move forward," the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said. "As long as the South's conservatives deal with inter-Korean relations with hostility and abuse ... such a basic humanitarian issue as family reunions cannot be resolved."
Millions of Koreans were separated by the Korean war, which sealed the peninsula's division. Most have died without the chance to reunite with the family members they last saw 60 years ago. The two sides had agreed to hold six days of reunions at the North's Mount Kumgang resort from September 25 to 30.