US Senate North Korea Family Reunion Bill Supporters Increase to 7

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] The number of U.S. senators supporting the "Korean War Separated Families Reunion Bill," currently pending in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has increased to seven.

According to the U.S. Congress and the Atlanta branch of the Korean American Progressive Action Committee (KAPAC) on the 15th (local time), Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia signed in support of the bill on the 31st of last month.

The bill, introduced in August last year, requires the U.S. Department of State to make efforts to provide opportunities for Korean Americans in the U.S. to reunite with their families in North Korea. It also mandates that the State Department's special envoy for North Korea consult with the South Korean government and regularly report the results to Congress.

Senator Warnock is the seventh senator to support this bill. Senator Jon Ossoff, who also represents Georgia, joined as a co-sponsor of the bill in December last year.

Michelle Kang, head of KAPAC's Atlanta branch, stated that Senator Warnock signed in support of the bill after continuous visits and persuasion by Korean Americans in the U.S. since December last year.

Warnock, elected in 2021, is the first Black senator from Georgia. He also serves as the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where civil rights activist Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.

The U.S. House of Representatives has separately passed a "Separated Families Reunion Bill" and a resolution on North Korea-U.S. separated families reunion, apart from the Senate bill.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.