President Lee meets 'special envoys' of N. Korean leader

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SEOUL, Aug. 23 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak held talks Sunday with a group
of North Korean officials visiting Seoul to pay their respects to a late South
Korean leader, a move that gives pause to months of escalating tension between
the two Koreas.
The meeting was initially set for 10 a.m. but moved forward by about an hour,
apparently to allow more time for talks.
The president was also set to meet with delegations from 10 other countries
before attending the state funeral of the late former President Kim Dae-jung, set
to be held at the National Assembly building from 2 p.m., according to officials
at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae.
The six-member North Korean delegation arrived here Friday as special
representatives of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to pay tribute to the late
former South Korean president, with whom the North Korean leader held the first
inter-Korean summit in 2000.
The North Koreans were originally set to return home Saturday, but extended their
stay by one day, seeking a chance to meet with President Lee. The North Koreans
were believed to be carrying a message, possibly a letter, from their leader.
"I hope this meeting (between President Lee and North Korean officials) will
bring about a new kind of inter-Korean relationship," Seoul's unification
minister Hyun In-taek said Saturday.
Cheong Wa Dae officials said the meeting with the North Koreans was part of the
protocol for foreign delegates to Kim's funeral.
Seoul-Pyongyang relations have deteriorated to their worst in a decade since the
Lee Myung-bak administration was inaugurated 18 months ago with a pledge to take
a tough stance on the North's nuclear programs.
The relations further worsened after the communist nation launched a long-range
rocket in April and conducted its second nuclear detonation the following month.
Pyongyang, however, has taken a series of reconciliatory gestures in recent days,
releasing a South Korean worker after nearly 140 days in detention and removing
most of its travel restrictions put late last year on South Korean businesses and
workers at a joint industrial park in its border town of Kaesong.
Four South Korean fishermen currently remain detained in the North since their
boat strayed into North Korean waters on July 30.
The North Korean officials were scheduled to head home at noon on a special
flight from their country's Air Koryo, according to the unification ministry.
bdk@yna.co.kr
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