North Korea threatens family reunions

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea on Thursday threatened to cancel reunions of families separated by the Korean War, accusing the United States of flying nuclear-capable B-52 bombers on a training mission over the Korean Peninsula.

North and South Korea agreed Wednesday to hold the family reunions Feb. 20-25, when hundreds of elderly Koreans would be allowed to meet their relatives for the first time since the war ended in 1953.

The deal was widely seen as a sign that relations between the two countries may be warming after threats of war followed the North’s nuclear test early last year. If held, the reunions would be the first since 2010, when the humanitarian program was halted amid souring relations.

But Thursday, North Korea warned that it could scrap the agreement unless South Korea canceled joint annual military exercises that it planned to start with the United States the last week of this month.

Family reunions remain an emotional issue for Koreans. The three-year Korean War ended in a truce, leaving millions of people separated from their relatives across the most heavily armed border in the world. No telephone, letter and email exchanges are allowed between the citizens of the two countries. And for the separated families, the occasional government-arranged reunions are virtually the only chance to meet long-lost relatives.

“How can they talk about trust and improvement of relations while they are opening their sky for a fleet of American nuclear-capable strategic bombers?” the North’s official Korean Central Television quoted its National Defense Commission as saying in a statement Thursday. “We will not just sit and do nothing about this farce.”

The commission, the top ruling agency in Pyongyang - headed by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un -said B-52 bombers ran practice bombing sorties on an island off the west coast of South Korea just as Red Cross officials from both Koreas were discussing the family reunion deal Wednesday.

There was no immediate comment available from the U.S. military command in Seoul. But South Korean government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a single B-52 flew a training mission off the country’s westcoast Wednesday. The U.S. Pacific Air Force Command declined to comment on operational details of specific missions but said that it “has maintained a rotational strategic bomber presence in the region for more than a decade.”

“These aircraft, and the men and women who fly them, provide a significant capability that enables our readiness and commitment to extended deterrence, provides assurances to our allies, and strengthens regional security and stability in the Asia-Pacific region,” its public-affairs office said in an email.

Kim Min-seok, a spokesman of the South Korean Defense Ministry, said Seoul and Washington would press ahead with their joint militaryexercises regardless of the North’s warning.

Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae,South Korea’s top North Korea policymaker, urged the North not to cancel family reunions.

“If an agreement is reached and then retracted,we cannot move forward,” he said. “The agreement yesterday must be kept for a South-North relationship where trust is multiplied.”

South Korea and the United States have regularly conducted joint military exercises to test their readiness against the North Korean regime, which has often attempted military provocations to destabilize the South and has been building nuclear devices and longrange missiles. But the North denounced the drills as a rehearsal for invasion.

North Korea, which suffered catastrophic destruction from U.S. carpet-bombings during the Korean War in the early 1950s, is particularly sensitive about the participation of U.S. aircraft carriers and nuclear-capable bombers in these war games conducted with the South. It often cited them as a reason it was developing nuclear weapons as a “deterrent.”

When North Korea last summer canceled its invitation of Robert King, Washington’s North Korean rights envoy, to Pyongyang to discuss the release of Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary held in North Korea, it reportedly cited a B-52 mission over South Korea at the time.

North Korea has routinely accused the United States of sending B-52 bombers on missions over the peninsula, although the Pentagon often does not publicize them. But in March, during the height of tensions with North Korea after its nuclear test, the Pentagon not only dispatched an aircraft carrier but also took the rare step of announcing practice sorties over the peninsula by nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2 bombers.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 02/07/2014

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