Two Koreas Agree on Talks on Family Reunions

North and South Korea agreed in principle Wednesday to hold talks on restarting a family reunion program, as separate discussions on reopening a jointly-run industrial estate failed to make progress.

The North also proposed official talks on resuming suspended cross-border tours, in a message sent through the border truce village of Panmunjom, the South's unification ministry said.

The ministry said Pyongyang wanted to hold talks about the tours on July 17, and proposed a Red Cross meeting on family reunions on July 19, with the two sides meeting either at its Mount Kumgang resort or at the Kaesong industrial estate.

A meeting Wednesday about reopening Kaesong failed to reach agreement but the two sides agreed to meet again next Monday.

After months of high military tensions, the North in recent weeks has been pushing for dialogue.

The unification ministry said the South agreed in principle to open talks on reuniting families separated since the 1950-53 war but wanted them held at Panmunjom.

It said the talks on cross-border tours to Mount Kumgang should be postponed, because the two sides are already discussing reopening Kaesong.

Hundreds of thousands of family members have been separated since the war and the last temporary reunions took place in 2010.

The North's Mount Kumgang resort, developed by the South's Hyundai Asan company, opened in 1998 as a symbol of reconciliation and once earned the North tens of millions of dollars a year.

But Seoul suspended tours by its citizens after a North Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean housewife there in July 2008. In response the North scrapped a deal with Hyundai Asan and seized its properties there.