US NGO launches campaign urging family reunions for Korean-Americans

Published : Feb 8, 2019 - 09:22 Updated : Feb 8, 2019 - 09:22

A US nongovernmental organization has launched a campaign urging President Donald Trump to discuss possible reunions of Korean-Americans with their long-lost relatives in North Korea when he meets the North's leader Kim Jong-un later this month.

The American Friends Service Committee said on its website that the summit, set for Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam, provides an opportunity to reunite Korean and Korean-American families that have been separated for almost 70 years since the 1950-53 Korean War.

In this file photo, taken on Aug. 24, 2018, members of a family separated by the 1950-53 Korean War pose for a photo at a hotel at North Korea`s Kumgang Mountain resort on the east coast as part of inter-Korean family reunions. The inter-Korean reunion of separated families was the first of its kind in nearly three years. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

"Following the Korean War, more than 100,000 divided Korean families came to the US Today, thousands of those families are still alive and hoping to reunite with their loved ones in North Korea," the group said. "Reuniting these families presents an opportunity to build cooperation and help heal the open wound of the unfinished Korean War, which never officially ended."

The committee is a Quaker organization that "promotes lasting peace with justice, as a practical expression of faith in action."

The Koreas remain technically at war as the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. (Yonhap)