South Korea and North Korea begin on Wednesday the talks to arrange a new round of reunions of families separated by the 1950-1953 Korean War, Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said.

The talks are expected to start at the North’s Mount Kumgang resort.

This will be the first dialogue after a nearly two-year break following an agreement North Korean leader Kim Jong-il reached with Hyun Jeong-eun, chief of South Korea’s Hyundai Group, to resume suspended reunions of separated families.

The reunions were arranged by the Red Cross and began in August 2000. They were last held in October 2007 and did not continue after political relations chilled, the Yonhap news agency reported.

The two Koreas have held 16 rounds of face-to-face reunions and seven rounds of video reunions, temporarily bringing together tens of thousands of separated family members.