President Lee Jae Myung said Saturday that the issue of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War must be addressed as a “top priority” between the two Koreas.
Lee made the remark in a speech read on his behalf by Second Deputy National Security Adviser Lim Woong-soon at a ceremony marking the third Separated Families Day.
“Unfortunately, inter-Korean relations are currently mired in deep distrust, but the issue of separated families remains the top priority that South and North Korea must work together to resolve,” he said. “We will work to fundamentally resolve this issue through dialogue and cooperation.”
Lee vowed to “strengthen the basis” for exchanges for the families, including conducting DNA tests to use their genetic information for potential family reunions with relatives in North Korea.
“We will do our utmost to ensure peace takes root on the Korean Peninsula and work to bring the day of their reunion forward even by a single day so that the grief of the separated families is not passed down to future generations,” he said.
On Friday, Lee also met with elderly people who fled to South Korea from the North during the war, urging Pyongyang to consider allowing the separated families to confirm the fate of their relatives.
In 2013, South Korea designated two days before the Chuseok fall harvest holiday as a commemorative day for separated families.
This year’s Chuseok falls on Monday.