South Korean Kim Sung-yoon, 96, right, meets with her North Korean sister Kim Seok Ryu, 80, during the Separated Family Reunion Meeting at Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. The rival nations struck a deal last week to go ahead with brief meetings of war-divided families, though there’s wariness in Seoul that Pyongyang could back out again. As they waited anxiously in the days leading up to the trip, many elderly Koreans had been unsure whether they would be able to see their long-lost relatives’ faces before they die. (AP Photo/Yonhap, Lee Ji-eun) KOREA OUT
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s president has proposed the rival Koreas hold reunions of Korean War-divided families on a regular basis.
South Korea has made similar proposals in the past, but President Park Geun-hye’s latest overture Saturday came after the two Koreas last month held their first reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War in more than three years.
President Park says more, regular family reunions should be held because time is running out for elderly people separated by the war and politics.
Analysts say North Korea has been reluctant to increase family reunions due to worries that doing so could open the country to influence from more affluent South Korea and threaten its grip on power.
Park’s speech marks Korea’s 1919 uprising against Japan’s colonial rule.