North Korea halts family reunions with South

SEOUL, July 19 (Reuters) North Korea said today it is impossible to hold discussions with South Korea over humanitarian issues and will halt family reunions after cabinet-level talks between the two ended in acrimony last week.

At the ministerial talks in the South Korean port city of Pusan, Seoul pressed Pyongyang to explain why it had defied international warnings and test-fired missiles. The North stormed out of the meeting, saying Seoul would ''pay a price'' for spoiling inter-Korean cooperation.

''Our side is, therefore, of the view that it has become impossible to hold any discussion related to humanitarian issues, to say nothing of arranging any reunion between separated families and relatives between the two sides,'' the chairman of North Korea's Red Cross Committee said.

In the letter addressed to the South Korean Red Cross and published on the North's KCNA news agency, the North Korean official said: ''The authorities of your side should be held fully accountable for the consequences to be entailed by their inhuman and treacherous action perpetrated against the nation.'' North and South Korea have held several rounds of reunions for the hundreds of thousands of families separated by the 1950-1953 Korean War. They have also arranged for reunions by closed-circuit video monitors.

Separately, North and South Korean talks to form a joint Olympic team are likely to be delayed due to the diplomatic fallout over Pyongyang's decision to test fire missiles earlier this month, a South Korean Olympic Committee official said today.

The Olympic committees for the two Koreas were scheduled to hold their next round of talks on Thursday and Friday on forming their first joint team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

South Korea said last Thursday after the ministerial-level talks collapsed that it will suspend food aid to North Korea until its impoverished neighbour returns to stalled six-country talks on ending its nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea test fired seven missiles on July 5, including its long-range Taepodong-2 missile, which some experts have said could potentially hit parts of U.S. territory.

REUTERS DKS RK1414