Because they threatened to scrap the deal this month even though it was first proposed by the North -- as political bait to win concessions from Washington and Seoul or as a smoke screen for fresh aggression, of course.
"Korean families meet in emotional reunions; Many had been separated since end of 1951 war" by Choe Sang-Hun | New York Times, February 21, 2014
SEOUL — Lee Beom-ju, 86, was among 83 elderly South Koreans, including a 96-year-old grandmother, who crossed the border in buses and ambulances Thursday to meet 178 North Korean relatives at the Diamond Mountain resort in southeastern North Korea.
The rival governments agreed to the family reunions as their first serious gesture toward easing frayed ties and rebuilding trust after several years of high tensions caused by the North’s nuclear tests and armed provocations against the South.
The reunions bore witness to the pain that the long political divide on the peninsula has inflicted upon “separated families,” that were torn apart during the three-year war. Graying sons and sisters hugged and collapsed in tears on the laps of their parents and brothers, many of whom were so old and weak that they had to make the trip across the border in wheelchairs....
One had Alzheimer’s and did not recognize her North Korean sister and daughter.
The family reunions are a highly emotional issue and a barometer of the status of relations on the peninsula. The two Koreas agreed to revive the humanitarian program last week after the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for improved relations with the South during his New Year’s Day speech.
But the family meetings also provide a glaring testimony to how far the two political systems have drifted apart. In the past six decades, a totalitarian regime has taken root in the North while the South evolved into a democracy and globalized economy.
During past reunions, relatives from the North showed far less emotion, at least while they were being watched by North Korean officials and media. They often puzzled their South Korean relatives by launching into long speeches praising their “great leader” and blaming the “American imperialists” for the Korean divide.
This week’s reunions last until Saturday. From Saturday to Monday, a separate group of 88 North Koreans will arrive in Diamond Mountain to meet 361 relatives who will travel from the South.
For these elderly people, the meetings will most likely be their last chance to see their relatives before they die. Their initial tearful joy is replaced by their heartbreak as they bid farewell at the end of the brief reunion.
In the past, sisters and daughters clung at the windows of the departing buses. Fathers told sons the dates of their grandparents’ death so they could continue the all-important Confucian rites of ancestral worship.
Millions of Koreans were separated from relatives when the peninsula was divided into the communist North and the pro-American South at the end of World War II in 1945.
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"Australian missionary being held in North Korea" by Gerry Mullany | New York Times, February 20, 2014
HONG KONG — North Korea has arrested a Christian missionary from Australia, his family said Wednesday, taking him into captivity even as it faces pressure to release an American missionary it has held for more than a year.
The Australian, John Short, 75, was arrested in the capital, Pyongyang, on Sunday, according to his wife, Karen. She said the trip was her husband’s second to the Communist dictatorship. He was in possession of religious materials that had been translated into Korean, according to a statement by his family.
John Short’s detention comes more than a year after North Korea arrested Kenneth Bae, an American missionary, after he entered the country from China. Bae was eventually sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for committing “hostile acts” against the North, and Pyongyang has repeatedly resisted strong US pressure seeking his release.
In an interview with Reuters, Karen Short said her husband had been open with North Korean officials about his faith and even read his Bible in front of government guides during his first trip there.
“He won’t be intimidated by the Communists,” she said.
North Korea was faulted this week in a sharply critical UN report for, among other problems, its intolerance of religious freedom. The report cited the North’s practice of “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, rape, and persecution on grounds of race, religion, and gender.”
John Short has been repeatedly arrested in China after doing evangelical work there, according to a biography of him posted on a Christian website called Gospel Attract.
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Someone who is intimidated by the Communists:
"Missionary in North Korea appeals to US; Urges officials to negotiate release" by Choe Sang-Hun | New York Times, January 21, 2014
SEOUL — A Korean-American missionary who has been jailed in North Korea for more than a year appeared at a news conference in Pyongyang on Monday and appealed to the US government to negotiate to secure his release.
“I believe that my problem can be solved by close cooperation and agreement between the American government and the government of this country,” the Christian missionary, Kenneth Bae, was quoted as saying in an Associated Press dispatch from the North Korean capital.
CIA cover
Bae, 45, wearing a uniform with the number 103 on his chest, said the news conference, attended by the AP, Xinhua, and a few other foreign media agencies in Pyongyang, was called at his request.
??
He said he apologized for the anti-North Korean acts he committed and said that he has not been treated badly in confinement, the AP reported.
The Chinese news agency Xinhua quoted him as saying that he had benefited from “humanitarian” help given to him by the North Korean government.
But Bae was under guard while he made these comments, and it was impossible to confirm whether he was speaking his mind.
He wasn't was drunk, was he?
In an interview with a correspondent from a pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan last year, Bae had made similar appeals, asking Washington to send a high-ranking official to Pyongyang to “apologize” for his crime and help free him.
Outside analysts have said that North Korea has probably arranged for Bae to make those comments to outside media to help focus international attention on his case and force Washington to engage the Pyongyang government.
North Korea has also allowed Bae to send letters to his family and allowed his mother to visit him in October.
Bae-bae!
Among at least seven Americans held in North Korea since 2009, Bae is the longest-serving detainee. He was arrested in November 2012 after entering the isolated country through its northeastern city of Rason with a group of visitors.
Bae was a missionary trying to build a covert proselytizing operation in Rason, using a tour business as a front, according to a videotaped sermon he gave at a St. Louis, Mo., church in 2011....
OH!
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"North Korea cancels offer to discuss US detainee" by Hyung-jin Kim | Associated Press, February 11, 2014
SEOUL — It signals an apparent protest of upcoming annual military drills between Washington and Seoul and an alleged mobilization of US nuclear-capable B-52s during training near the Korean Peninsula. North Korea calls the planned drills a rehearsal for invasion, a claim the allies deny.
The State Department also said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, has offered to travel to North Korea at the request of detained American missionary Kenneth Bae’s family....
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Time for the tearful farewells:
"The meeting was requested by North Korea, which has launched a recent charm offensive [and] also demanded South Korea delay the annual military drills with the United States, set to begin Feb. 24 and end in mid-April."
"The United States is ‘‘ready and able to deter North Korean aggression,’’ Secretary of State John F. Kerry said. ‘‘It is time for the North to choose the path of peace and refrain from provocations or using excuses to avoid the responsibility that they bear. There is more that China can do.’’
I wish he would just shout up and stop spewing global warming gas.
"Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China would never allow chaos or war on the Korean Peninsula."
I'm crying because I'm happy. Peace is breaking out all over despite U.S. provocations.
Related: China faults UN report on abuse in North Korea
UN panel gives scalding report on abuse in N. Korea
Can we stop it with the insults please?
"Let’s stop with the insults, North Korea tells South" by Choe Sang-Hun | New York Times, January 17, 2014
SEOUL, South Korea — It was unclear how the North’s proposal defined slander and insult. The state-run North Korean news media routinely refer to the United States and South Korea as warmongers. The North has described American leaders as cruel monsters and bloodthirsty beasts and South Korean leaders as puppets, hooligans, and dogs.
Well, if the Buster Browns fit....
Last year, it insulted President Park Geun-hye of South Korea, the first woman to serve as the country’s leader, with a reference to the “venomous swish” of her skirt.
The North’s proposal may also have been a reference to the balloons occasionally launched into its territory from South Korea that carry messages denouncing North Korea’s leader as a brutal dictator and human-rights abuser. Anti-North activists in the South, many of them defectors, sent a barrage of balloons northward across the heavily guarded border this week, carrying hundreds of thousands of leaflets.
A propaganda campaign!
Why do they have to do that with the U.N. hauling their water?
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Also see: North Korea Restarting Nuclear Weapons Program
Certainly that will get the war-weary and worn-out American people behind a war, any war.
