WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, released a statement following news that hundreds of Korean families separated by the 1950-1953 war reunited today in North Korea for the first time in more than six decades.

“This is an important step forward in reuniting some of the many Koreans who have been tragically separated from their families for more than 60 years. I hope we’ll see more of these reunions in the future, since tens of thousands of Koreans, including many living in the United States, are still waiting and hoping to be reunited with their loved ones,” said Sen. Warner. “I’ll continue to urge the South Korean government and the State Department to prioritize opening up this opportunity to Korean-Americans.  We shouldn’t let a lack of diplomatic relations get in the way of a chance to reunite Korean-American families with their loved ones.”

Following the division of the Korean Peninsula into South Korea and North Korea, more than 10,000,000 Koreans were separated from their family members, many of whom now live in the United States. Since the signing of the Korean War armistice agreement on July 27, 1953, there has been extremely limited contact between Korean Americans and their family members who remain in North Korea. North and South Korea first agreed to reunions in 1985, and there were no regular reunions until 2000.  Prior to today, 19 face-to-face reunions have been held, as well as 7 video-link reunions, giving approximately 22,000 Koreans the opportunity to briefly reunite with their relatives. Today’s reunion was the first since February 2014.

Earlier this year, Sen. Warner and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) introduced a joint resolution urging the U.S. Department of State to prioritize the facilitation of reunions between Korean Americans who were divided from their relatives during the Korean War. Sens. Warner and Kirk’s resolution encourages North Korea to permit reunions between Korean Americans and their North Korean relatives, urges the government of South Korea to include U.S. citizens in future family reunions planned with North Korea, and calls on the State Department to further prioritize efforts to reunite Korean Americans with their separated family members. It also acknowledges the efforts of the American Red Cross to open channels of communication between Korean Americans and their family members who remain in North Korea, and praises humanitarian efforts to reunite all individuals of Korean descent with their relatives and engender a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Previously, Sen. Warner has worked to provide visas to Koreans with specialized skills that are lacking in the U.S. labor market and to strengthen bilateral ties between the United States and South Korea.