The Ministry of Unification plans to visit members of separated families and family members of abductees and detainees to offer them comfort and to have discussions with appropriate organizations on the occasion of the Lunar New Year.

Minister Cho Myoung-gyon met with the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea (after the war) including Chairman Choi Seong-ryong and family members of abductees in the morning on January 28. In the afternoon, he visited Han Nan-sook (92), a separated family member living in Dobong-gu, Seoul and offered her comfort. She misses her parents and siblings that she left behind in the North all those decades ago. Han came from Joonghwa County, South Pyeongan Province and left her hometown for the South with her three aunts during the Korean War.

Minister Cho will participate in the 35th Gyeongmo ceremony at the Mangbaedan Memorial Altar in Imjingak on the Lunar New Year’s Day, which this year falls on February 5. Vice Minister Chun Hae-sung will also visit family members of detainees on January 31 and take time to gather opinions of organizations for wartime abductees on February1.

The Ministry of Unification will strive to expand reunions of separated families in the short term by implementing the Pyeongyang Joint Declaration made by the two leaders of South and North Korea last September. Among other things, the Ministry will restore a permanent center for reunions, hold reunions by video conferencing, and exchange video messages with the North.