South Korea offers North talks on family reunion

South Korea has sent a request to North Korea, calling for talks on allowing families separated by the Korean War to have more reunions.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry said on Wednesday that the formal request was sent by fax, proposing a meeting on March 12 at Panmunjom, which is the border truce village.

“We hope that the North will quickly respond to our proposal in consideration of the pain and suffering of the separated families,” the ministry’s spokeswoman Park Soo-Jin said.

The request came after the two sides held the family reunion at a mountain resort in the North from February 20 to 25.

On Tuesday, President Park Geun-Hye called for the reunions to be held on regular basis and for families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War to exchange letters and hold video conferences.

Millions of Koreans, who were split by war, have been waiting to reunite since the Korean War ended in a ceasefire in 1953. No peace deal has been signed since then, meaning that North and South Korea remain technically at war.

The two countries have held 19 family reunions since the first event in 1985.

Some 22,000 Koreans have had the chance to briefly meet with relatives. Some 18,000 of them have met relatives in person and the remaining have seen each other by video.

Neither North nor South Korea has ever allowed a second chance for their citizens to meet their relatives across the border.