Epress.am News from Armenia
North Korea urged South Korea on Friday to “show proper respect” over the death of its leader, Kim Jong-il, calling the South’s decision to express sympathy for the North Korean people but not to send a government delegation to Mr. Kim’s funeral next week “an unbearable insult and mockery of our dignity,” The New York Times reports.
The statement, carried on the North’s official Web site, Uriminzokkiri.com was the new Pyongyang leadership’s first overture to South Korea since it announced on Monday that Mr. Kim died of heart attack last Saturday.
Mr. Kim’s sudden death and the untested leadership of his son and heir, Kim Jong-un, have set off a frenzy of analysis in the region over where the North Korean regime was headed under the young successor and how its neighbors should deal with it.
“The South’s authorities must think about the grave impact its actions will have on North-South relations,” the North Korean statement warned. “Depending on what it does, the relations can thaw or completely derail.”
It said North Korea will open its closed border with the South to accept all condolence delegations from South Korea, both private and governmental. It also guaranteed their safety.
Choi Boh-seon, a South Korean government spokesman, said the South did not plan to revise its decision. “We announced what we would do, based on the past, present and future of South-North relations and the sentiments of our people,” he said.
A day after Mr. Kim’s death was announced, South Korea offered its “condolences to the North Korean people,” hoping that Seoul and the new leadership in Pyongyang could “work together for peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula.” But it said it would not send a delegation to Mr. Kim’s funeral on Dec. 28.
South Korea, however, authorized visits to the North by the families of the late President Kim Dae-jung, who held a landmark summit meeting with Mr. Kim in 2000, and the late Hyundai chairman, Chung Mong-hun, who had business ties with North Korea. It also said that private organizations and individuals would be permitted to mail or fax condolences, including a foundation named after the late President Roh Moo-hyun, who held a summit with Mr. Kim in 2007.
In South Korea, religious and civic groups have called on the government to allow them to lead delegations to Mr. Kim’s funeral. They argued that such visits would help improve relations and promote political reconciliations between the two Koreas. But other activist groups denounced such ideas, sending giant balloons to the North that carried messages like “Go to hell, Kim Jong-il” or “Why send condolences to the Evil?”
Under President Lee, inter-Korean relations have chilled to the lowest point in years, particularly after a South Korean warship sank in March last year in an explosion the South blamed on a North Korean torpedo attack. The North later shelled a South Korean border island. In the two incidents, 50 South Koreans were killed.