Brief reunion across Koreas: ‘Let’s meet again in afterlife’

The event saw 389 family members from the South granted the opportunity to travel to a resort just north of the inter-Korean border for six two-hour sessions with 141 relatives from the North. During an interview with the Associated Press, Lee recalled the heart-felt memories he will have of what is likely to be his last meeting with his uncle.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang greeted Christian church leaders from across the world, including South Korea, who are to seek ways for peace on the Korean Peninsula and the social development of the communist country, according to the World Council of Churches.

The emotional three-day reunions that started Tuesday are the first time many of them have seen their loved ones since the war between the countries more than 60 years ago.

This time around, there were only five families in which spouses or parents and children were reunited – compared with 23 back in 2010. Just two days later, the families were forced separate once again.

“Feasting his eyes on the street, he said the longer one watches it, the more magnificent and spectacular it looks”, North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun reported about the “Great Successor’s” visit to the Mirae Scientists Street.

Tension rose significantly after the incident with the South Koreans claiming that the landlines were planted by the North Korean military near the South Korean guard posts where they knew soldiers would be patrolling.

North Korea’s media, not so much.

The leaders of South Korea and U.S. made the unprecedented move of releasing a separate joint statement on the North Korean nuclear issue after their summit on October 16. South Korea managed to overcome this democratic deficit by the 1987 Constitution, which was reached by making a large social consensus before the Seoul Olympics. Multistate talks involving the United States, China, two Koreas, Japan, and Russian Federation, have ended in failure.

TV footage from the resort showed one elderly North Korean woman trying to keep the mood on her table upbeat, challenging everyone to an arm wrestle to show off her physical health. We will have to see each other under the supervision of others.

Kim Ki-joo, 76, said: “I can’t think of what to say”.

“What’s the point? We probably wouldn’t get picked”, she said.

“I just looked at their faces and asked questions like how many family members were still living in the North”, said Jang Choon, 83, who was reunited with his younger brother and sister at the last round of the reunions before this week’s. “We don’t have enough information to say if people are starving or not”, said Liliana Balbi, a senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization official to the Guardian.

The random computer lottery used by the South selects participants based on age and family circumstances, but there is no chance of a second reunion.