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Yon Hap News Agency (28 January 2019)

South Korea is pushing to hold video reunions of families separated by the Korean War as soon as possible, the unification ministry said Monday.

The leaders of the Koreas agreed in their September summit to hold Red Cross talks and arrange video reunions of families dispersed between the South and the North since the 1950-53 war at an early date.

The South had pushed to hold a round of video reunions around next week's Lunar New Year's Day holiday, but the plans failed to materialize as more time is required to win sanctions exemptions for equipment that should be sent to the North for the event.

"Since late last year, we have been in consultations with the United States and based on that, we will work to make (the reunions) happen at the earliest date possible," Baik Tae-hyun, the ministry's spokesman, told a regular press briefing.

The Koreas held their latest face-to-face family reunions at the North's Mount Kumgang resort in August, allowing around 100 families from each side to see their long-lost relatives.

Around 20 rounds of face-to-face family reunions have been arranged since the first-ever inter-Korean summit in 2000. Some 57,000 South Koreans, mostly in their 80s and older, are waiting to be reunited with their families who might be living in the North.

The Koreas technically remain at war as the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20190128003600325?section=nk/nk