At a meeting ahead of the national Chuseok thanksgiving holidays, Lee told South Koreans who had families in the North that he hoped for an easing of hostility and resumption of cooperation.

“It is a political responsibility for the two Koreas to allow the split families to communicate with each other and exchange letters from a humanitarian perspective,” Lee told the families during his visit to a border island with North Korea.

About 36,000 South Koreans separated from their families in the North have requested the government for reunions, according to South Korea’s unification ministry.

The last family reunions between the two Koreas were hosted in August 2018, but have been halted amid frosty inter-Korean relations since.

In February, North Korea was seen dismantling a facility used for the family reunions, a signal of its strained ties with the South.