2 Koreas resume building reunion center

Dozens of South Korean workers entered North Korea Wednesday to resume construction of a hotel-like facility to be used for reunions of families separated by the world's most heavily fortified border.

The resumption of work on the so-called reunion center at the North's Diamond Mountain resort is a tangible sign of improved relations between the two Koreas after Pyongyang promised last month to shut down its main nuclear facility in exchange for aid in a landmark disarmament deal.

The construction was suspended last July when North Korea kicked out South Korean workers after Seoul refused to give it aid in anger over Pyongyang's test-firing of a series of missiles. The North's nuclear test in October further frayed ties with the South.

On Wednesday, 45 South Korean workers returned to the mountain resort near the eastern border to continue construction of a 12-story building where relatives from the North and the South will spend time together during temporary reunions, said an official of the South Korean Red Cross on customary condition of anonymity.

The project was about 30 percent complete when suspended last year. Officials hope to finish the construction by the first half of next year.

The two Koreas have held 14 rounds of family reunions since 2000 when their leaders held the first and only summit and pledged to work toward peace and reconciliation. Those reunions have brought together more than 14,500 Koreans.

The next round of face-to-face reunions is scheduled for May.

Since 2005, the two sides also have been holding video reunions in which relatives from each side talk to each other via television, with the next such meetings set for next week.

Millions of families remain separated following the division of the Korean Peninsula in 1945 and the Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.