South Korea has approved a civilian group's visit to North Korea this week for discussions on a planned trip there by the widow of former President Kim Dae-jung, an official at the Unification Ministry said Monday.
  

Lee Hee-ho, who was the South's first lady during Kim's five-year tenure till 2003, is seeking to visit the communist nation as early as next month, a move that may help ease tension on the divided peninsula.
  

The ministry said it gave a nod to the application for five representatives from the Kim Dae-jung Peace Center to travel to the North's border city of Kaesong on Tuesday to discuss the logistics and other details of Lee's trip.
  

"I hope that the move could pave the way for alleviating tension in the Seoul-Pyongyang relations," Lee said at a meeting with Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn at her residence, expressing hope that the government could make efforts for better ties.
  

Lee has voiced her wish to make a visit to the North to provide North Korean children with knit hats, scarves and clothes.
  

"It is a relief that I can visit the North," she added.
  

The move comes as North Korea has intensified its verbal attacks against South Korea following the United Nations' establishment of a field office aimed at monitoring the North's dismal human rights situation. Pyongyang has said Seoul will face "catastrophic" fallout in inter-Korean ties due to the office opening.  
  

If Lee's visit is realized, it is widely expected to alleviate the strained inter-Korean ties as she may meet with North Korean leader Kim jong-un.
  

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, which produced a landmark declaration on peace and reconciliation on the peninsula.
  

Lee, 93, expressed her wish to visit the North last October, citing humanitarian purposes, but she had to postpone her trip due to cold winter weather even as Pyongyang accepted her request.
  

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."
  

Any trip by South Koreans to North Korea requires the South Korean government's approval along with the North's consent. The two remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
  

In May, South Korea said it will encourage civilian groups to boost inter-Korean exchanges in such areas as culture, sports and history if they help restore national unity and open channels for cooperation.
  

This year marks the 70th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule and the division of the two Koreas. (Yonhap)