Vol. 78/No. 8      March 3, 2014

The family visits, which will involve some 84 Koreans from the South and 88 from the North, will be the first since 2010 and are part of efforts by Pyongyang to improve relations with the South Korean government.

“Foreign forces are wholly to blame for this tragic and disgraceful history of the Korean nation,” a Jan. 27 press release from the North Korean mission to the United Nations said, reporting on a Jan. 16 initiative by Pyongyang to push for “opening a wide avenue for improving north-south relations.”

“It is our determination to create an atmosphere of reconciliation and unity, completely halt hostile military acts, realize the reunion of separated families … and reenergize multi-faceted north-south cooperation and exchanges,” the statement said.

The initiative by Pyongyang led to talks Feb. 12 to set the visits, the highest-level contact between the two Koreas in seven years.

North Korean representatives at the meeting requested their counterparts postpone until after the family visits two joint military drills by Washington and Seoul. But the U.S. and South Korean governments refused. Secretary of State John Kerry, who flew to Seoul Feb. 13, said it was not “appropriate to link humanitarian issues such as [family] reunification to any other issues.”

The drills include a practice landing by 5,000 U.S. Marines and 3,000 South Korean forces, the largest such operation since 1989.

Pyongyang decided to go ahead with the family visits despite these military exercises aimed at the North. The two sides issued a joint press release Feb. 14 announcing the reunions and agreement to continue efforts to “promote mutual understanding and trust.”

The same day, the Socialist Workers Party in the U.S. sent revolutionary greetings to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, welcoming the initiative by Pyongyang and condemning Washington’s refusal to postpone military drills.

“We reaffirm our commitment to the fight for Korea’s national reunification and withdrawal of all U.S. troops, aircraft, ships, and conventional and nuclear arms from Korea, its air and waters,” said the statement by Steve Clark on behalf of the SWP National Committee.

The firmest support for the Korean people’s fight for national reunification will be won among those resisting what “crisis-ridden world capitalism offers workers and farmers the world over today,” the SWP statement said. “Korea is one!”
 
 
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