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NKorea offers to send delegates to Kim funeral
AFP - 2 hours 10 minutes ago
SEOUL (AFP) - - North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has offered to send a delegation to the funeral of former South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung, its latest apparently conciliatory gesture after months of bitter hostility.
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Kim Dae-Jung, who died Tuesday aged 85, in 2000 held the South's first-ever summit with the North and was awarded the Nobel peace prize later that year.
The communist state's leader earlier Wednesday praised his efforts to improve cross-border relations.
"Though he passed away to our regret, the feats he performed to achieve national reconciliation and realise the desire for reunification will remain long with the nation," the official news agency quoted the leader as saying.
Park Jie-Won, a spokesman for the former president's family, said Kim Jong-Il had sent condolences and had announced he would send a special envoy to the funeral.
"The delegation will carry a wreath sent by Chairman Kim Jong-Il," Park told reporters.
Park said the North had indicated it would send a five-member delegation led by a secretary of its ruling communist party.
The North suggested the delegation could stay one day but longer if necessary. It would use a special plane flying directly to the South.
The North asked for a quick reply to its offer after talks are held between Kim's family and the Seoul government, Yonhap news agency and other media quoted Park as saying.
The two Koreas have remained technically at war since their 1950-1953 conflict and have no scheduled transport links.
Seoul's unification ministry, which handles cross-border relations, said it not been told of such a plan by the North. The presidential office said Wednesday it would not object to representatives from Pyongyang.
The funeral date has not been announced. The government is consulting the family about whether it wishes for a state funeral or a lower-level ceremony.
Cross-border relations have become icy since Seoul's new conservative government took a tougher line with Pyongyang last year -- abandoning the "sunshine" engagement policy under Kim Dae-Jung and his successor Roh Moo-Hyun.
But in a rare conciliatory gesture Monday, the North offered to resume tourism trips and family reunions for South Koreans. Last week it freed a South Korean engineer detained in the North for four months.
Former US president Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang this month to win the release of two American journalists.
Officials reportedly indicated to Clinton they want better ties with Washington, which is pushing for tough enforcement of United Nations sanctions imposed following the North's latest missile and nuclear tests.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson was due to meet Wednesday with two North Korean diplomats, his office said, amid signs of a thaw following Clinton's visit.
"North Korea has made a strategic decision to use former president Kim's death to ease tensions on the peninsula to benefit itself," Yang Moo-Jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, told AFP.
Yang said a funeral delegation would create an atmosphere for dialogue, offsetting international pressure on the North.
The Seoul government said it would set up mourning altars across the country for Kim, a towering figure in the country's decades of struggle for democracy against army-backed autocrats.
US President Barack Obama praised Kim's "tireless efforts" to promote peace on the Korean peninsula, calling him a "courageous champion of democracy and human rights."
Japan and China also paid tribute, along with past and present South Korean leaders and ordinary citizens.
Kim held office from 1998-2003 after surviving assassination attempts and a death sentence during his dangerous years as a dissident.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed Kim's "noble life of dedication to the goals of peace, democracy and prosperity" in Korea.
Kim also won praise for his handling of the Asian economic crisis, which ravaged South Korea. He worked with international financial bodies to revive the economy and launch major reforms and corporate restructuring.
He never wavered on the need for reconciliation with North Korea, even though his policy failed to halt its drive for nuclear weapons and its two atomic tests.
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