Koreas to have talks on ex-first lady's NK visit next week

SEOUL, July 3 (Yonhap) -- Aides to late former President Kim Dae-jung said Friday they plan to make another trip to North Korea next week for discussions over an envisioned trip by the former leader's widow to the North.

Lee Hee-ho, 93, who was the South's first lady during Kim's five-year tenure until 2003, is seeking to visit the communist nation as early as early July for humanitarian purposes.

Talks for the trip's itinerary were held in the North's border city of Kaesong on Tuesday, but the two sides failed to set a specific date and agreed to have another meeting.

Kim Sung-jae, an official at the Kim Dae-jung Peace Center, said that five representatives from the center plan to visit the North on Monday to finalize the details over the trip. The Unification Ministry plans to approve it on Friday.

They delivered to the North Lee's hope that she could visit the North in July for a four-day stay to deliver knit hats, scarves and clothes to North Korean children.

Lee's envisioned visit has won much attention as the move could help improve the strained inter-Korean ties amid prospects that she may meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

North Korea has recently intensified its verbal attack against the South following an opening of a U.N. office in Seoul tasked with monitoring the North's human rights records.

Lee's late husband was the architect of the "sunshine" policy that actively pushed cross-border exchanges and reconciliation. He held the first inter-Korean summit with then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000.

Lee first expressed her wish to visit the North last October to help North Korean children, but she had to postpone her trip due to cold winter weather.

She sent a wreath of flowers in December last year to the North to mark the third anniversary of the death of the current leader's father, Kim Jong-il. In response, the North's young leader said in a letter that he was "looking forward to having Lee in Pyongyang once the weather got warmer in 2015."

In April, the peace center made a request for a prior contact over Lee's visit, but the North rejected it, citing "complex inter-Korean circumstances."

sooyeon@yna.co.kr
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