The Red Cross societies of the two Koreas will meet for a second day of talks on Wednesday at the North Korean border city of Gaeseong.
On the first day of the talks Tuesday, Pyongyang reportedly made specific requests for humanitarian provisions to the North, including rice and fertilizer.
The North also pressed South Korea to take steps to resume dialogue in order to restart suspended tours to the North’s Mount Geumgang. It added that in order to regularize inter-Korean family reunions, the two Koreas must resolve differences over the inter-Korean family reunion center at the mountain resort and must discuss the resumption of Geumgang tours.
The South wants the reunions to be held at the reunion center, which the North seized along with other South Korean facilities at the mountain resort in April in protest of the South’s suspension of Geumgang tours.
Meanwhile, the North also on Tuesday proposed that inter-Korean family reunions be held three or four times a year.
In response, the South’s delegation proposed monthly reunions for 100 families at a reunion center at Mount Geumgang starting in March of next year and to allow those family members who have already met to meet again on a monthly basis.
The South also urged the North to change its views on South Korean prisoners of war and abductees. The North denies the very existence of such people.