Can peace talks between North and South Korea finally allow long-separated families to reunite?

By DONALD MACINTYRE

ast month Cho Dong Young got a letter he's spent half a century waiting for. Smuggled out of North Korea, it was a few lines from a younger sister he last saw in 1947, before he left for the South. Tears pouring down his cheeks, he carefully read the hand-written message: "Dear brother, our mother and father passed away during the Korean War. Older brother and sister are dead, too. I have married, but my husband is also dead and I live alone. I have a son and a daughter, but I don't know where my son is now." The message was poignantly brief, but it opened a window of hope for Cho, now 73. "I am going to find a way to meet my sister," he says.

That still looks like a distant dream for Cho and the millions of families split apart by the Korean War, which drew an impenetrable Iron Curtain across the peninsula in the early 1950s. But it looked just a little closer as representatives from the North and South Korean governments met in Beijing last Saturday for the first time in almost four years. Officially, the talks were about fertilizer: Pyongyang badly needs more so its farmers can feed a starving population. South Korea's chief negotiator Jeong Se Hyun said Seoul would provide fertilizer and other aid for the North if Pyongyang takes "measures to improve the South-North relationship." But there's much more at stake. The two sides put "other mutual concerns" on the agenda, including family reunions, the exchange of envoys and a follow-up on agreements signed in 1991 to ease tensions on the peninsula.

Talks last broke down in 1994 when Kim Il Sung, father of North Korea's paramount leader Kim Jong Il, died in the middle of negotiations over a historic North-South summit meeting. Relations deteriorated after Seoul refused to issue an official statement of condolences and called the elder Kim a war criminal instead. The new impetus to improve ties came with last December's election of South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, who has wasted no time in making overtures to the North.

Kim has proposed allowing South Koreans over 65 to travel to North Korea if they are invited by relatives. Kim has also promised to boost economic ties by easing rules that make it hard for South Korean companies to invest in the North. In one clear sign of the new mood, Seoul quickly agreed to Pyongyang's request to hold last week's meeting in Beijing. In the past, months of bickering over dates and venues typically proceeded every encounter. "We want to be pro-active rather than reactive," said Choi Sung Hong, a deputy minister at South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. "We plan to approach North Korea with open-mindedness."

Pyongyang clearly can't afford to stay away from the bargaining table. Starvation is reported to be widespread in the countryside, although there are no reliable estimates of how bad things are. Agriculture is in a shambles. The World Food Program estimates North Korea's grain harvest will fall 1.7 million tons short of what the country needs to feed itself this year. So far, South Korea has pledged to donate the cash equivalent of 100,000 tons of corn, while the U.S. will give 200,000 tons of food aid. Japan and the European Union haven't promised anything yet. Pyongyang hopes Seoul will provide enough high-grade fertilizer to boost this year's harvest. The North also wants to find out if Kim means what he says about mending the relationship. "North Korea is showing a very positive attitude toward the new government," says Lee Jong Seok, a North Korea expert at the Saejong Institute in Seoul. "This is a very important opportunity."

Much could still go wrong, as it has so often in the past. But the mood was moderately optimistic on Saturday. No one knows how long it will take to narrow the gap between the Communist North and the democratic South. But even small steps will be welcomed by people like Cho. Since the Korean War ended in 1953, all correspondence across the border has been forbidden, by both sides. A few families have met briefly in ethnic Korean villages along the Chinese border. It's illegal for Cho and other South Koreans to contact North Korea without their government's permission, and in the past that was hard to obtain. Even exchanging letters is difficult. Cho's sister had to send her message secretly via a mutual friend in the U.S. She also had to throw in a line of praise for the North Korean government, in case censors intercepted it.

Until things change, Cho is left to ponder the fate of his family. He knew his parents must have passed away, but he was shocked to learn his brother was also dead. Now he wants the chance to pay homage to his parents in the traditional way, putting offerings like fruit, fish and traditional Korea liquors on their gravesite and praying for their souls. He also hopes he can take food to his sister if Pyongyang ever allows her to invite him. But for now, like millions of other elderly Koreans, all he can do is hope that political leaders on both sides can bridge their differences. Says Cho: "It's absurd that families don't know if their relatives are alive or dead."

--Reported by Stella Kim /Seoul