Will Kim Jong-un meet southern delegations?

Pyongyang says inter-Korean ties depend on Seoul’s attitude toward condolences


The planned visit of South Korea’s former first lady Lee Hee-ho to North Korea to offer private condolences to the late leader Kim Jong-il is drawing attention to whether her delegation will be received by Kim’s heir apparent Jong-un.

Her husband Kim Dae-jung, the late former president of South Korea, had the first inter-Korean summit with the late North Korean leader in 2000. When Kim Dae-jung died in 2009, a high-level delegation from Pyongyang separately met with the widowed Lee after paying condolences to Kim in Seoul.

Lee’s delegation will visit the North with another private delegation of Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun, whose father-in-law Chung Ju-yung pioneered cross-border business exchanges. When her husband Chung Mong-hun died in 2003, Hyundai Group received a North Korean delegation.

On his second offering of condolences to his father on Friday, Kim Jong-un received delegations from overseas at the memorial palace to mourn Kim’s death, the North Korean state news agency said. Observers said the heir apparent may do the same for the South Korean private delegation.

The unofficial delegations, consisting of 13 people on Lee’s side and five on Hyun’s, will leave Seoul on Monday morning by bus and enter the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang where the late Kim’s body is displayed in a glass coffin. 

Kim Jong-un wipes his eyes as he views the body of his father Kim Jong-il at Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang, Friday. (AP-Yonhap News)

They will stay one night in Pyongyang. Without attending Kim’s funeral, Lee’s group will return to Seoul the next day via Gaeseong Industrial Complex where North Korean employees work with South Korean manufacturers, while Hyun’s group will directly come to the South Korean capital.

The two delegations do not include any South Korean government officials, as Seoul essentially banned South Korean individuals or groups from visiting Pyongyang to pay condolences to the late Kim, with exceptions allowed only for Lee and Hyun. Instead, the Seoul government sent a message of sympathy to North Korean people.

On Sunday, North Korea warned that the future direction of inter-Korean relations will depend on the South Korean authorities’ attitude towards condolences for the late Kim.

“The South Korean authorities should be reminded that their ban on the mourning will bring an unpredictable catastrophic consequence,” a spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea told the official news agency.

“Koreans will ultimately test the morality of the South Korean authorities as well as sincerity in improving the North-South relations.”

Pyongyang said earlier that it would welcome any South Korean mourners but rapped South Korean authorities for banning others from visiting to express condolences.

On Wednesday, Kim Jong-un is expected to lead his father’s funeral in the morning, with high-ranking North Korean military and Workers’ Party officials attending the service.

By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)