Korean delegation heads North to its pay respects

THE widow of former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, the author of a now-jettisoned engagement policy with North Korea, crossed the fortified land border between the two sides yesterday to pay her respects to deceased dictator Kim Jong-il.

Ties between the North and South have been frozen since the election of conservative South Korean president Lee Myung-bak in 2008, who cut aid in a bid to force the North to abandon a nuclear programme.

A 13-member delegation, led by Lee Hee-ho, the widow of former president Kim Dae-jung who masterminded the “sunshine policy” of engagement with the North, crossed the border by car and will pay respects at the bier of Jong-il in Pyongyang.

“I hope my visit to North Korea will help improve South-North Korea relations,” Yoon Chul-koo, an aide to Lee, quoted her as saying.

Lee, who met Jong-il in Pyongynag in 2000 in the first inter-Korean summit since the end of the Korean War in 1953, will stay for two days and will not attend the Wednesday’s funeral.

Most South Koreans are banned from going to the North, and South Korea, which remains technically at war with the North, is not sending an official delegation to mourn Jong Il.

Asked whether the delegation plans to meet North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, Yoon said the visit was for “pure condolence”.

A second group of mourners from South Korea led by the widow of one of South Korea’s biggest conglomerates with investments in the North also headed to Pyongyang.

Hyun Jeong-eun, the wife of Hyundai’s late former chairman Chung Mong-hun, led a small delegation.

— Reuters