Yoon says issue of separated families is 'most pressing task'

President Yoon Suk Yeol said Sunday that addressing the issue of family members separated by the 1950-53 Korean War is "the most pressing task."

Yoon made the remark in a speech read on his behalf by Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho at a ceremony marking the second Separated Families Day.

"The issue of separated families is the most pressing task we must resolve," Yoon said, noting that around 3,000 of the 130,000 applicants for government-arranged reunions die every year without having reunited with their loved ones in North Korea.

"The North Korean authorities are rejecting even humanitarian exchanges, but we are finding things we can do and going ahead with them first," he said.

Yoon recalled that a survey of separated family members was conducted across North America last year, with similar surveys being carried out in other parts of the world this year.

"We will strengthen the basis for cooperation by continually calling for international attention to the issue of separated families on the international stage, including at the United Nations," he said.

Last year, South Korea designated Aug. 13 on the lunar calendar, or two days before the Chuseok fall harvest holiday, as a commemorative day for separated families.

This year's Chuseok falls on Tuesday.