SEOUL, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- South Korea has followed North Korea's lead, proposing to resume regular reunions for families living on the divided Korean Peninsula, officials in Seoul said.
A South Korean government official said: "We have decided to make an offer to hold regularly scheduled family reunions to the North," South Korean news agency Yonhap reported Sunday.
The unnamed official said Seoul would discuss the issue during a working-level Red Cross meeting, which North Korean officials proposed "at an earliest possible date" to discuss resumption of the reunions.
"A solution for the family reunions is nowhere in sight, if we hold the meeting irregularly," the South Korean official said, noting that among the 120,000 separated family members, 40,000 have died.
North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported Saturday the country's Red Cross sent a message to Seoul calling for a new round of family reunions at the resort on Mount Kumgang to coincide with Chuseok, the Korean fall harvest holiday, falling on Sept. 22 this year, Yonhap reported.
The reunions began after the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.
