North Korea postpones reunions

SEOUL, South Korea -- Citing a "warlike situation" in South Korea, North Korea on Friday abruptly postponed a scheduled reunion of 200 separated family members in the two Korean states, officials said.

In a statement broadcast on its radio, North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland, a powerful party organization, also called off a plan to send a taekwondo demonstration team to South Korea. Both the reunion and the demonstration had been scheduled for next week.

"My heart is laden with pain," Chung Jin-young, a 64-year-old separated family member, said after hearing of the postponed reunion program. Chung had expected to travel to the North next week to meet his 70-year-old brother, Chung Jin-duk, for the first time since the 1950-53 Korean War.

The North Korean statement said, however, that Cabinet-level meetings and two other inter-Korean government contacts, scheduled to be held in the North this month, will be held.

"Dialogue and travels between the two sides cannot be promoted smoothly as far as South Korea remains on special alert in a warlike situation," said the North's statement, monitored in Seoul. "It is difficult to travel to South Korea now, with our heart at ease."

South Korean officials called an emergency meeting to review the situation. "We're trying to analyze the North Korean intentions," said Kim Jung-roh, a spokesman for the Unification Ministry.

The North's statement said the postponement of the two exchanges will last until South Korea lifts its special alert status and creates a freer atmosphere for exchanges.