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1st LD Writethru: S. Korea's ex-first lady to visit DPRK as early as in July: Seoul

Xinhua, June 26, 2015 Adjust font size:

The widow of the late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung will visit the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as early as in July to possibly meet with DPRK's top leader Kim Jong Un.

Unification Ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol told a press briefing Friday that the Kim Dae-jung Peace Center submitted an application earlier in the day for approval of the visits by the center officials to Kaesong to discuss schedules for former first lady Lee Hee-ho's travel to the DPRK.

The center was quoted by Yonhap News Agency as saying that the DPRK has proposed a meeting next Tuesday in its border town of Kaesong to talk about Lee's trip.

Lee's side offered last Thursday to have the meeting to discuss schedules, and the DPRK responded Thursday to the offer. Five figures from the Lee side and five others from the DPRK would talk about her schedules if Seoul grants her visit.

Lim said Lee's visit would be a matter of private-sector exchanges, noting that the South Korean government has actively supported such exchanges as well as humanitarian aid and cooperation in private sectors to open a new path of inter-Korean cooperation.

A center official was quoted as saying that the former first lady would visit the DPRK as early as next month or no later than the Aug. 15 liberation day from the Japanese colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

Lee's trip was proposed in late 2014 by DPRK's top leader Kim Jong Un who invited her to Pyongyang at an appropriate time in 2015 in token of his gratitude for her sending of condolence flowers to mark the third anniversary of the death of late DPRK leader Kim Jong Il, father of the current top leader.

Lee was accompanied by the late President Kim Dae-jung when he visited Pyongyang in 2000 and held the first inter-Korean summit with Kim Jong Il.

Her visit was expected to ease tensions on the peninsula as the DPRK denounced South Korea for supporting the establishment in Seoul of a new U.N. office monitoring human rights performance of the DPRK.

On Thursday when the DPRK responded to the meeting for Lee's schedules, the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea ( CPRK) blasted the setting up of the U.N. human rights office in Seoul, saying in a statement that it was the most hideous political provocation against the DPRK.

On June 19, the DPRK sent an email to notify South Korea of its cancellation of joining the Summer Universiade set to be held in Gwangju from July 3, citing the opening of the U.N. human rights office. Endi