The Unification Ministry on Thursday said it will spend 1.18 billion won ($1.06 million) to construct seven more video centers across the country where families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War may be able to reunite with relatives in the North virtually. 

The decision to build additional video facilities was approved during a civilian-government committee on inter-Korean exchanges presided over by Unification Minister Lee In-young.

“I have never forgotten that solving the separated family issue is a top priority task,” Lee said at the start of the meeting, noting that a rapidly increasing number of the family members are 90 or older.

“With US President Joe Biden having expressed support for inter-Korean talks, the government will work to expand our role and space in pursuing inter-Korean relations,” he said. “We hope the North to be more forward-looking toward the development of inter-Korean relations and for the denuclearization and establishment of permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

The ministry stressed that the decision to build more facilities, in addition to the existing 13 video reunion centers -- mostly located in the Seoul metropolitan area -- was made in light of the COVID-19 situation and to meet the needs of aged family members if the reunions are to happen.

The seven centers will be built in regions outside of Seoul, including Uijeongbu in Gyeonggi Province, Gangneung and Wonju in Gangwon Province, Cheongju in North Chungcheong Province, Hongseong in South Chungcheong Province, Andong in North Gyeongsang Province and Jeonju in North Jeolla Province. Construction is expected to be completed by the end of August.

Of the 133,406 South Koreans who have registered to be reunited with members of their families in the North since 1988, only 48,022, or 36 percent, were still alive as of May, according to the ministry’s data. Over 66 percent of the survivors are aged 80 or older, calling attention to the urgency of reunions.

The two Koreas have held 20 reunions since the first in 2000, with the last face-to-face meetings in August 2018 at the Kumgangsan resort on the North’s east coast.

The strained inter-Korean relations, as well as deadlocked denuclearization talks between the US and North Korea, have put the family reunions on hold. With time running out for the aging family members, Seoul has floated the idea of video reunions, but Pyongyang has remained unresponsive.

By Ahn Sung-mi (sahn@heraldcorp.com)