SEOUL, South Korea

Lee Beom-ju, 86, had little to say at first.

I am sorry, I am sorry, he told his long-lost younger brother and sister in North Korea when he finally met with them on Thursday, during the first family reunion s on the divided Korean Peninsula in more than three years. Mr. Lee, now a South Korean citizen, fled the North in 1951 during the Korean Wa r. Until Thursday, Mr. Lee had not seen his family since, living with a sense of guilt for failing to look after it as the eldest son, according to pool reports from the South Korean news media. Hwa-ja, the little sister he last saw 63 year s ago, is now a 72-year-old grandmother. Grandfather told me to run, run and go to the South, away from the war, because I was his eldest grandson, Mr. Lee said in tears, explaining to his sister and his brother, Yoon-ju, 67, why he had to leave them behind. Mr. Lee was among 83 older South Koreans, including a 96-year-old grandmother, w ho crossed the border in buses and ambulances on Thursday to meet with 178 North Korean relatives at the Diamond Mountain resort in southeastern North Korea. The rival governments agreed to the family reunions as their first serious gestu re toward easing frayed ties and rebuilding trust after several years of high te nsions caused by the North s nuclear tests and armed provocations against the Sout h. Foreign reporters were not allowed to cover the event. The reunions bore witness to the pain the long political divide on the peninsula has inflicted upon separated families. Graying sons and sisters hugged and coll apsed in tears on the laps of their parents and brothers, many of whom were so o ld and weak that they had to make the trip across the border in wheelchairs. Father s last wish in his deathbed was that I should look and find you, Kim Myeong-b ok, 66, told his North Korean sister, Myeong-ja, 68, who was the only member of his family left in the North. Lee Young-sil, 88, who has Alzheimer s disease, did not recognize her North Korean sister and daughter. A 93-year-old man named Kang Neung-hwan met a North Korean son born after he had fled to the South. The separation has been so long that some carried their prewar photos to help th eir siblings recognize them. They also packed photos of their hometowns, as well as underwear and other gifts for their relatives in the impoverished North. The family reunions are a highly emotional issue and a barometer of the status o f relations on the peninsula. The two Koreas agreed to revive the humanitarian p rogram last week after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, called for improved relations with the South during his New Year s Day speech. But the family meetings also provide testimony as to how far the two political s ystems have drifted apart. In the past six decades, a totalitarian government ha s taken root in the North, while the South has evolved into a democracy with a g lobalized economy. During past reunions, relatives from the North showed far les s emotion, at least while North Korean officials and the news media were watchin g them. They often puzzled their South Korean relatives by abruptly launching in to long speeches praising their great leader and blaming American imperialists he Korean divide. On Thursday, the North Korean relatives praised their marshal, r making the reunions possible.

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This week s reunions last until Saturday, when the relatives will return to their

homes. From Saturday to Monday, a separate group of 88 North Koreans will arrive in Diamond Mountain to meet with 361 relatives who will travel from the South. Neil Patrick Harris prepares for "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" Those brand-name musicals As fierce as she Is fragile: Elaine Stritch in Michigan Ads by Media PlayerAd Options The meetings are likely to be the older Koreans last chance to see their relative s before they die. Their initial tearful joy is replaced by heartbreak as they b id farewell. In the past, sisters and daughters clung at the windowsof departing buses. Fathers told sons the dates of their grandparents deaths so they could co ntinue the all-important Confucian rites of ancestral worship. Millions of Koreans were separated from relatives when the peninsula was divided into the Communist North and the pro-American South at the end of World War II in 1945. Since the Korean War of 1950-53, no exchanges of letters, telephone cal ls or emails have been allowed between North and South Koreans, and the occasion al reunions are just about their only chance to meet relatives. The humanitarian wishes of the separated families have always been subject to th e political mood of the two governments. They did not agree to hold family reunions until 1985. For the next 15 years, th ere was no reunion. A breakthrough came when Kim Dae-jung, then the president of South Korea, traveled to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, for the first int er-Korean summit meeting in 2000. After that, the two Koreas held up to three rounds of reunions a year until 2008 , when a conservative government deeply critical of the North s nuclear weapons pr ogram took power in Seoul. The family reunions were revived in 2009, but were suspended again the following year amid souring relations. The Koreas held their last reunions in 2010. A total of 22,000 people from both Koreas have participated in past reunions. Ab out 71,000 South Koreans more than half of them 80 or older remain on a waiting list for a chance to meet with relatives in the North. South Korean participants are selected by lottery. It is unclear how the North chooses its candidates. Of those on the waiting list, 3,800 die each year without fulfilling their dreams. Earlier Thursday, Kim Seom-gyeong, 91, arrived in an ambulance at Sokcho, a town in northeastern South Korea where the government gathered South Korean particip ants before taking them across the border. Even if I die, I will die in the Diamo nd Mountain, Mr. Kim was quoted as saying by the South Korean news agency Yonhap.