N. Korea to let families visit, will free 4 fishermen

South pleased on concessions after days of talks

— Four South Korean fishermen held by North Korea after their boat strayed into northern waters will be released, and families divided for decades after the Korean War will get a rare chance to meet next month.

North Korea announced Friday that it will hand over the fishermen and their boat to South Korean authorities across the eastern sea border at 4 p.m. CDT today, Seoul's Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Haesung said. Chun welcomed the decision, but urged Pyongyang not to detain South Koreans in the future.

"I am very pleased and it's beyond expression," Lee Ah-na, the wife of the boat's captain, said from the eastern port of Geojin, just south of the border.

The announcement came hours after the two Koreas agreed to a new round of reunions next month for families separated by the Korean War, the first in nearly two years.

Red Cross officials from the two sides concluded three days of talks at the North's scenic Diamond Mountain resort with a deal to hold six days of temporary reunions involving 200 families from Sept. 26, according to a joint statement.

Millions of families were separated by the Korean War, which ended in 1953 with a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. No mail, telephone or e-mail exchanges exist between ordinary citizens across the Korean border.

After their first-ever summit in 2000, the two Koreas regularly held family reunions until late 2007. Then, ties frayed after conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office last year with hard-line policies such as linking aid to Pyongyang's disarmament.

Friday's agreement said the North and South will continue to discuss separated families and other humanitarian issues.

Pyongyang has reached out in recent weeks to Seoul and Washington after a series of provocations, including nuclear and missile tests, and international sanctions to punish the communist regime for the defiant moves banned under U.N. resolutions.

Meanwhile, diplomats and officials said Friday that the United Arab Emirates has seized a cargo ship bound for Iran with a cache of banned rocket-propelled grenades and other arms from North Korea, the first such seizure since sanctions against North Korea were ramped up.

The seizure earlier this month was carried out in accordance with tough new U.N. Security Council sanctions meant to derail North Korea's nuclear weapons program, but which also ban the North's sale of any conventional arms.

Diplomats identified the vessel as a Bahamas-flagged cargo vessel, the ANL Australia.

Also earlier this month, the communist country freed two American journalists and a South Korean worker after more than four months of detention. It also sent a delegation to Seoul to mourn the death of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

South Korean media reported earlier this week that Pyongyang invited Washington's two top envoys on North Korea to visit in what would be their first nuclear talks since President Barack Obama took office.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters Thursday that the U.S. had not received a formal invitation from the North. He also said special envoy Stephen Bosworth plans to travel to Asia soon, but he will not go to North Korea.

Four North Korean officials visited the U.S. last week to meet American relief organizations and discuss the resumption of food aid to the impoverished nation, Yonhap news agency said. But their trip did not include meetings with U.S. government officials, it said, citing unidentified sources in Washington.

Experts said the North's recentgestures are part of its strategy to strengthen the country by 2012 - the centennial of founder Kim Il Sung's birth.

"The North is trying to improve its ties with Seoul and Washington to open up a new era" of prosperity, said Paik Hak-soon, an analyst at the private Sejong Institute think tank near Seoul.

The North's cooperative moves are unlikely to be onetime events, he said, noting South Korea and the U.S. should take some positive steps in response to keep alive the momentum.

Information for this article was contributed by Jae-soon Chang and Wanjin Park of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 08/29/2009

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