North Korea yesterday rejected the South’s call for talks aimed at restarting reunions for families separated since the Korean War, saying Seoul should first respond to its conditions for dialogue. South Korea’s Red Cross Tuesday proposed the talks to discuss a resumption of the temporary reunions for family members separated since the 1950-1953 war. Pyongyang’s Minju Joson newspaper accused Seoul of talking about reunions and other exchanges while secretly seeking sanctions. If the South was genuinely interested in family reunions and other exchanges, the paper said, it should reply to a “questionnaire” addressed to Seoul’s leaders this month. The questionnaire told the South’s leaders to “repent of their crimes” following the December 17 death of the North’s leader Kim Jong-Il and to honour past summit agreements. It accused them of showing disrespect during the mourning period for Kim and told them to halt major exercises with US troops and halt “vicious” smear campaigns. The South has dismissed the demands as unreasonable. Hundreds of thousands of family members were separated during the war, which sealed the division of the peninsula. There are no civilian mail or phone connections across the border, and many do not even know whether their relatives are alive or dead. The last temporary reunions, arranged by the two Koreas’ Red Cross authorities but authorised by governments on both sides, began in October 2010. Plans for further events were scrapped after the North shelled a frontline island in the South in November that year, killing four people. Since 2000 sporadic events have briefly reunited more than 17,000 people face-to-face and an estimated 3,700 - usually those too frail to travel—via video link. But 80,000 people in the South alone are on the waiting list for reunions and thousands die every year before getting their chance. Protesters rallied yesterday outside the Chinese embassy in the South Korean capital, demanding that Beijing scrap plans to repatriate newly-arrested refugees from North Korea. The demonstrators, estimated by police at about 100, said the 33 refugees face severe punishment or even death if forced back to their homeland. Some 70% of the fugitives have families in South Korea, they said in a statement, including a 19-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy. In their statement the demonstrators claimed the North’s new leader Kim Jong-Un has given orders to execute all those caught trying to flee his country. Other activists say the North has strengthened border security and toughened punishment for refugees since Jong-Un took over from his late father Kim Jong-Il in December. The South’s foreign ministry and human rights groups have urged Beijing not to send fugitives back against their will. China treats North Koreans found on its soil as economic migrants and sends them home. Rights groups severely criticise the policy, saying they should be given refugee status. More than 21,700 North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the 1950-1953 war, the vast majority in recent years. Almost all of them escape to China, hide out and then travel to a third country to seek resettlement in Seoul. AFP