http://timesofearth.com/Interview/?NT=1&nid=12137 -Hundreds of elderly North and South Koreans separated by the Korean War more than half a century ago met to the north of the border on Saturday in the first such reunion event in two years.
Seoul - In the turmoil, the family became separated and Mr Kim, then 24, fled south with troops retreating from the communist onslaught.
His young children were trapped in the North - and as cold war descended when the fighting stopped, all contact between them was cut.
On Saturday, 58 years later, they were finally reunited in a North Korean holiday resort, and Mr Kim was able to apologise at last. "I am sorry for not taking you when I fled," he told the children he last saw a lifetime ago.
They were strangers to the 82-year-old South Korean. His son, Kim Jung-hyun, brought five medals he received from North Korean leader Kim Jong Il - awarded, said his sister, "because he worked hard since he grew up without a father."
Brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers were reunited at the meeting, the first to be held since relations between the North and the capitalist South went back into the freezer in 2007.
In that year the South cut aid to the North in protest at missile and nuclear tests, and the family reunions - first permitted in 2000 during a period of warmer relations between the two countries - were stopped in retaliation.
For the Korean people, and for their neighbours in the region, the meeting was a hopeful sign that the closed state of North Korea may again be thawing slightly to the outside world after a period of great tension. The regime has come under increased pressure in the past year to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.
On Wednesday President Barack Obama told a United Nations General Assembly session that North Korea must be held accountable if it continues to put its pursuit of nuclear weapons ahead of international security.
For the 96 elderly South Koreans invited north, it was a deeply emotional day - for most of them a last chance before they die to make peace with long-lost relatives. Four of those chosen were judged to be too frail to make the journey. Three-quarters were older than 70 and the oldest was 95.
Lee Sun-ok fled south on a ship in December 1950 without a chance to say goodbye to her relatives, and said yesterday was one of the most important days of her life. "I never thought I could see them again," she said. "I can die after visiting the north with no regrets."
She had married in South Korea, had two children and worked selling clothes in her own small shop. But she never forgot her relatives in the North. "I am fortunate to meet my brothers and sisters before I die," she said. "They are always in my heart."
Some reunions were difficult. "Don't you have anything to say to me?" said Chung Dae-chun, who at 95 was the oldest person taking part, as he was reunited with his son, who looked older than him.
Not all of the families had been sundered by the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953. Yoon Jung-hwa met her brother, whose fishing vessel was abducted 22 years ago by the North. "Don't cry. What's there to cry about when we are all doing well like this?" she said.
The reunions at the Diamond Mountain resort on North Korea's east coast, a few miles from the heavily fortified border, were organised by North Korea's Unification Ministry. The South is eager to stage more reunions on a regular basis and allow divided families to confirm whether their long-lost kin are still alive. But the response from the North has so far been unenthusiastic.
According to South Korea's Red Cross, nearly 40,000 elderly people have died since they applied to make visits, out of a total of 127,400.
Since the reunions began 16,200 Koreans have held temporary face-to-face reunions with relatives, and 3,740 others have seen relatives at a distance in "video reunions" .
For North Korea the reunions are double-edged; a chance to show a rare humanity, but at the same time a reminder of the freedom it denies to its unfortunate citizens. The closed nation is obsessive about trying to block out the outside world, portrayed in official propaganda as a hostile, alien place. For ordinary citizens there is no post, telephone or email exchange between the two Koreas.
The current round of reunions will continue for six days. Then the southerners will return home - to wonder if they will ever get another chance to see their families in the North.
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2:54Emotional reunion for brother and sisterby boeboedjembe175,960 views
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