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N. Korea denounces Park’s UN speech, says family reunions at stake

September 29, 2015
In this file photo dated Feb. 20, 2014, South Korean resident Kim Sung-yun, 95, relishes being reunited with her younger sister from North Korea, Kim Suk-ryeo, 79, during the reunions of separated families at the Mount Kumgang resort on the North's east coast. South and North Korea agreed on Sept. 8, 2015, to hold another round of reunions of families, separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, at the resort on Oct. 20-26. (Yonhap)

In this file photo dated Feb. 20, 2014, South Korean resident Kim Sung-yun, 95, relishes being reunited with her younger sister from North Korea, Kim Suk-ryeo, 79, during the reunions of separated families at the Mount Kumgang resort on the North’s east coast. South and North Korea agreed on Sept. 8, 2015, to hold another round of reunions of families, separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, at the resort on Oct. 20-26. (Yonhap)

SEOUL (Yonhap) — North Korea on Tuesday indicated it may cancel the upcoming reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War if South Korean authorities keep making “reckless” efforts to stop the North from conducting a satellite launch and a nuclear test.

The two Koreas plan to hold reunions of separated families at the North’s scenic Mount Kumgang resort on Oct. 20-26. Still, there is uncertainty over the feasibility of the reunions as the North has threatened to launch a long-range rocket and conduct a fourth nuclear test.

“Because of the reckless anti-DPRK confrontational racket of the South, the rare reunions of separated families are at stake like being on a thin ice,” an unnamed spokesman for the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement.

The DPRK is the acronym of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The statement was carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Pyongyang’s official media monitored in Seoul.

The North was reacting to South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s speech delivered on Monday at the 70th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, which urged Pyongyang not to go ahead with a long-range rocket launch in the latest pressure on the hard-line communist country.

“This is an unpardonable provocation against us and a vicious confrontational move that hurts the hard-won conciliatory mood between the North and the South,” the spokesman said. “It is a unified opinion in and out of the country that the mood can be completely broken if South Korean officials continue to make such confrontational remarks.”

The two Koreas agreed to hold the reunions for 100 separated families each from both sides, keeping up a conciliatory mood after defusing a tense military standoff last month. The standoff had flared after a land mine explosion blamed on Pyongyang maimed two South Korean soldiers.