N. Korea threatens to cancel family reunions
Print Edition
Barely a day after the two Koreas agreed to resume reunions for divided families, North Korea threatened yesterday to renege on the deal unless South Korea scraps looming military drills with the United States.
“It’s outrageous that (South Korea) is pushing ahead with aggressive war manoeuvering at a time when both sides reached a crucial agreement to realize national reconciliation and cooperation,” said North Korea’s top military body, the National Defense Commission.
“Dialogue and exercises of war of aggression ... cannot go hand in hand,” it added.
In a rare example of cross-border cooperation, officials from the two Koreas agreed on Wednesday to hold a reunion on February 15-20 for several hundred relatives who were separated by the 1950-53 Korean conflict.
It would be the first such event in more than three years, and the accord was welcomed as a possible harbinger of warmer ties between the two arch rivals.
But yesterday’s NDC statement appeared to back up those who had warned that Pyongyang would use the reunion agreement as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from Seoul.
South Korea and the US are set to start a series of annual military exercises at the end of the month, and the North has repeatedly demanded that they be called off.
The NDC voiced particular outrage over what it said were US B-52 bombers “carrying out nuclear strike drills” off the Korean peninsula on Wednesday as the talks on the reunions were being held.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency cited a military source as confirming that a single B-52 had flown an unspecified exercise off the west coast.
The South Korean Defense Ministry vowed the joint drills at the end of the month would go ahead, and reiterated Seoul and Washington’s position that the exercises and the family reunions should not be linked.
“We will proceed with our drills normally, regardless of the reunions for separated families,” said ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok.
At a press briefing in Washington after the bilateral agreement on resuming reunions was reached, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki stressed that she was “not at all” aware of any move to call off the exercises.
“These exercises occur around the same time every year and are a clear demonstration of the US commitment to the alliance (with South Korea),” Psaki reiterated.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
