By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer Mon Feb 11, 7:21 AM ET
SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea criticized North Korea on Monday for failing to disclose what happened to millions of dollars of aid intended for the construction of a reunion center for families separated by the division of the Korean peninsula.
South Korea gave North Korea $400,000 in cash along with construction materials worth $3.4 million last year to help build the reunion center in Pyongyang under a 2006 deal, but North Korea has yet to live up to its pledge to disclose how the aid was used, South Korea's Unification Ministry said.
"We have stressed to the North on several occasions that transparency in the provision of the construction materials should be ensured," Seoul's Unification Ministry said in a statement. "But there has been no clear notification from the North of the progress in construction."
South Korea believes North Korea has not even started building the facility because it has never shown a possible site to visiting South Korean officials, said Lim Hae-sung, an official at the ministry's separated family bureau.
The ministry will continue to urge North Korea to account for the aid, the statement said.
The building is to be used for video conferences between members of divided families.
Millions of families were separated after the division of the Korean peninsula in 1945 and the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the two countries still technically at war.
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