Hundreds of families from the two Koreas on Saturday met at the DPRK’s Mount Kumgang resort in the first government-arranged reunion since the inauguration of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

South Korean Lee Jung-ho (L) cries as he meets his DPRK elder brother, who was originally from the South and was a war prisoner from South Korea during the Korean War, at the DPRK resort of Mount Kumgang September 26, 2009. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Arriving at the DPRK’s resort in the afternoon, South Koreans met with their long-separated families at a massive gathering at around 3 p.m. local time (0600 GMT), and are later to have a dining meeting in the evening.

The separate, personal meetings are scheduled to be held on Sunday.

The South Korean families will come back home on Monday after the three-day gathering, which will be followed by the second-session reunion event which will last from Tuesday to Thursday.

The reunion, which had become a semi-regular event since 2000 after a historic inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang, was suspended in 2007 with a deteriorating mood in inter-Korean relations.

Saturday’s family meeting, however, came as a result of an agreement reached last month between the DPRK leader Kim Jong-il and Hyun Jeong-eun, chairwoman of South Korea’s Hyundai Group.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet