Park calls for letter exchanges, video reunions for separated families

South Korean President Park Geun-hye ordered the government Tuesday to begin talks with North Korea to allow families separated across the heavily armed border since the Korean War to exchange letters and hold video reunions. Park issued the order during a Cabinet meeting, saying that at least 6,000 people should be allowed to meet with relatives from the other side of the border every year if all elderly members of separated families are to see their loved ones at least once before they die. The remarks came days after she called for the regularization of face-to-face reunions. "The reason I proposed regularizing reunions of separated families ... is that many families do not have time to wait any more. Many members of separated families have died with unresolved grievances," Park said. "The unification ministry and the Red Cross should hold discussions with the North to realize letter exchanges and video reunions."    Last month, hundreds of people from the two Koreas were reunited with their relatives for the first time since the 1950-53 Korean War in the first round of family reunions in more than three years as relations between the two sides showed signs of warming. Park believes that holding family reunions as a one-off event is not enough, and there should be more reunions on a bigger scale. In a nationally televised address Saturday, Park proposed to the Norththat the two sides hold family reunions on a regular basis. North Korea has not reacted to the offer yet. But the communist nation is unlikely to accept the offer to regularize reunions because it has used such events as a bargaining chip aimed at extracting economic aid and other concessions from the South. Millions of Koreans remain separated across the border. The Koreas have held more than a dozen rounds of reunions since their landmark summit in 2000, bringing together more than 21,700 family members who had not seen each other since the Korean War. More than 129,200 South Koreans have applied for temporary reunions with their family members and relatives in North Korea since 1988, according to government data. Among them, more than 57,700 people, or 44.7 percent of the applicants, have died, according to the data.