N. Korean delegation may extend stay in Seoul: minister

(ATTN: RECASTS headline, lead; UPDATES with likely extension of stay, details)
By Kim Hyun and Tony Chang
SEOUL, Aug. 22 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean delegation may delay its return home
Saturday, a Seoul minister said, hinting the visiting officials may meet with
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak at the end of a two-day trip to join the
national mourning.

Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said after a 90-minute meeting with his North
Korean counterpart Kim Yang-gon that "their return to North Korea may be
delayed." The six-member team was originally scheduled to fly back to Pyongyang
at 2 p.m. after paying tribute to the late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung
the previous day.
Kim Yang-gon, who is Pyongyang's point man on Seoul as head of the North's
Workers' Party unification front department, underscored the urgent need to
improve icy inter-Korean relations.
"After meeting with several people (in the South), I felt the imperative need for
North-South relations to improve," Kim said during a photo session ahead of the
closed-door meeting with Hyun at a Seoul hotel.
The meeting was the first high-level dialogue since defense ministers' talks held
in Pyongyang in November in 2007. No minister-level dialogue has been held since
conservative Lee took office last year, taking a tougher stance on North Korea's
nuclear weapons program.
"I hope for frank discussions given that the meeting is the first high-level
meeting since the incoming of the new (Seoul) government," Kim said. The official
thanked the South Korean government for receiving the delegation.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il sent his close aides to pay their respects to the
late president, who held the historic first inter-Korean summit with him in 2000
and facilitated broad exchanges and aid to the impoverished state. They brought
Kim Jong-il's personal wreath and a message for the bereaved family, which said
the late president "did a lot for the Korean people."
The North Korean team is led by Kim Ki-nam, a party secretary who most frequently
accompanies Kim Jong-il in public activities .
A possible meeting between the South Korean leader and the North Korean leader's
envoys may bring a seachange in inter-Korean relations that rapidly chilled over
the past year. A senior official at the South's presidential office, Cheong Wa
Dae, said earlier that Lee may meet the delegates if they carry a message from
the North's leader.
Asked by a reporter whether the delegation carried a letter from their leader,
Kim Yang-gon said he is "not in a position to comment."
The top North Korean officials in the delegation_ Kim Ki-nam and Kim Yang-gon _
are among the few powerful figures in North Korea who can hold talks with Kim
Jong-il "any time on any subject," Chung Dong-young, an opposition lawmaker and a
former unification minister, said after a breakfast with the North Koreans at the
hotel.
odissy@yna.co.kr
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)