SEOUL: South Korea's President Park Geun-hye has said she is ready to meet unconditionally with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to lay the ground for a peaceful potential unification with Pyongyang.
President Park's remark on Monday (Jan 12) came after Mr Kim said in his New Year's address: "If the atmosphere and environment is there, there is no reason not to hold a high-level summit."
Speaking at her first news conference of the year, Ms Park also said she wanted to see more separated families in North and South Korea reunite around the Lunar New Year next month.
There is an urgency for such reunions.
South Korean Kang Neung-hwan, aged 94, had waited for 63 long years before he met his eldest son - who lives in North Korea - for the first time in February last year at a reunion in the communist state's Mount Kumgang.
The man had been separated from his pregnant wife in the North after the 1950 outbreak of the Korean War. But the bittersweet reunion had lasted barely half a day before he had to bid his family farewell again.
"I don't know when I'll die. I'm not in that good health right now. I just wish more good things like this can happen while I'm alive," said Mr Kang.
Nearly 69,000 people are waiting for a chance to meet their loved ones living in North Korea. About half of them are more than 80 years old while most do not know whether their family members are alive or dead.
South Korea's Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said he wanted to do more for these fragmented families. "We will aim to tackle the basic humanitarian issues like finding out if the family members are alive or dead, allow messages or letters to be exchanged via video."
Between 100 and 200 people are invited to participate in reunions, and these take place once or twice a year depending on the state of relations between the Koreas. The reunion last February was the first in more than three years due to frosty inter-Korean ties.
The Korean War ended in 1953. But the two Koreas remain technically at war as the conflict had ended in a ceasefire and not a peace treaty. Since then, there have been no direct means of communication for the people living on both sides of the border.
The state-sanctioned reunions are the only legal way for families on either side of the Korean Demilitarized Zone to meet. Since North and South Korea mark the 70th anniversary of liberation from Japan's colonial rule this year, South Korean families hope ties will be good, which could allow for more reunions.