Working-level Red Cross officials from South Korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) are likely to meet in DPRK's resort Mount Geumgang next week to discuss building a permanent meeting place for separated families,South Korean Yonhap News Agency quoted sources as reporting on Friday.

"Chang Jae On, chairman of the North Korean Red Cross Society, proposed having the contacts at Mount Geumgang from Nov. 25 to Nov.27, in a telephone message relayed this morning to Lee Se-wong, acting president of the (South) Korean National Red Cross (KNRC),"Yonhap quoted a KNRC official as saying.

"We are going to accept the proposal, since we consider it positive," the unnamed official said.

The meeting, the third of its kind this year, will discuss technical issues, including a land survey, regarding the construction of the facility for temporary reunions of families separated since the Korean War, he added.

The two countries agreed to build the reunion facility at the DPRK's mountain, located on the country's east coast, during the fifth and latest round of the main Red-Cross talks held in November 2003.

Several rounds of working-level contacts were later held to discuss detailed measures and technical problems with the joint project.

South Korean government officials hope the proposed meeting will lead to the full-scale resumption of inter-Korean governmental talks that were suspended after a mass defection of DPRK citizens to South Korea late July.

Millions of people remain separated by the heavily fortified inter-Korean border since the end of the 1950-1953 war. About 10,000 separated family members have been temporarily reunited with the help of the Red Cross of the two countries.

Source: Xinhua