South Korean president-elect Lee Myung-bak, who has pledged to act tough with North Korea, will ask the communist neighbor to send a representative to his inauguration next month, a Seoul news report said yesterday.
North Korean media have made no mention of Lee, the conservative former mayor of Seoul who once ran the giant Hyundai conglomerate's construction arm, since he won the presidency on Dec. 19.
A member of Lee's advance team told the Yonhap news agency Lee planned to send an envoy to North Korea to deliver an invitation to attend his Feb. 25 inauguration.
"[The South] should send a special envoy to North Korea in January so that an official at least from the deputy premier level or higher can attend the presidential inauguration ceremony in February," Korea University Professor Nam Sung-wook, a senior aide on North Korea policy, said in an interview.
Lee has pledged to review the North Korea policy of outgoing President Roh Moo-hyun, criticized for being too soft on the communist state whose government has continued to develop nuclear weapons and maintained a dismal human rights record.
"There's no change in my belief that [the new government] should offer dialogue with North Korea," Nam said.
Meanwhile, Pyongyang accused the US and South Korea of carrying out more than 2,000 spy flights over its territory last year.
The official Korean Central News Agency, quoting a military source, said late on Monday the combined US and South Korean espionage flights reached 180 last month.
North Korea issued a New Year's message yesterday calling on Washington to scrap what it calls "hostile" policies toward the regime, although it made no mention of the missed deadline.
"The source of war should be removed and lasting peace be ensured," the North said in the message carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
"An end should be put to the US policy hostile toward [North Korea]," it said.
The North also said the armistice signed at the close of the 1950-1953 Korean War should be replaced by a peace treaty.
It also said the North would "make earnest efforts for stability on the Korean peninsula and peace in the world" and that the country is ready to develop "relations of friendship and cooperation with all the countries that are friendly toward it."
The message, published in the form of a joint editorial by three major North Korean newspapers, also called for strengthening the country's military force, but shopped short of calling for boosting nuclear capabilities.
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