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Pyongyang threatens to cancel ex-S. Korean first lady’s planned NK visit

July 8, 2015
Ex-first lady of South Korea Lee Hee-ho (Yonhap)

Ex-first lady of South Korea Lee Hee-ho (Yonhap)

SEOUL, July 8 (Yonhap) — North Korea sternly warned Wednesday that it might nullify a plan by the widow of former President Kim Dae-jung to visit the North in early August if South Korea continues to make provocations against Pyongyang.

The warning by the North came just two days after former aides to the late president said that Lee Hee-ho, 93, who was the South’s first lady during Kim’s five-year tenure until 2003, plans to visit the communist country from Aug. 5-8. Due to her health condition, she is to go by airplane instead of a land route.

North Korea’s Asia-Pacific Peace Committee involved in talks for Lee’s visit said that conservative media in the South have made “provocations” by reporting that the North is trying to use Lee’s visit politically.

“South Korea should know that the agreement for Lee’s planned visit is tentative…If South Korea continues to insult the North’s supreme leader and make provocations, an opportunity that Lee could visit the North could be missed,” said the North’s Korean Central News Agency, citing a statement by an unidentified spokesman from the committee.

The spokesman said that whether Lee will be able to make a trip to Pyongyang depends on South Korea.

The warning dampens high expectations that Lee’s planned visit could serve as a catalyst in helping ease the strained inter-Korean ties.

Whether she could meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been the focus of the South’s media attention, though nothing has been decided.

Her planned visit comes ahead of Korea’s Liberation Day, which falls on Aug. 15. This year marks the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule and the division of the two Koreas.

But the North hinted that it could nullify Lee’s planned visit, claiming South Korea has made a preposterous assertion that the North suggested the use of an airplane to promote its new airport terminal in Pyongyang.

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. At that time, she accompanied her husband to Pyongyang.