SEOUL, Aug. 19 (UPI) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will send a delegation to attend the funeral of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, Pyongyang indicated Wednesday.
South Korean officials said they had received a letter from the North saying it will dispatch a team of dignitaries to pay tribute to Kim Dae-jung, who died Tuesday at age 85, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
The letter from the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, the North's semi-official organ in charge of inter-Korean affairs, was faxed to the Kim Dae-jung Peace Center, a non-governmental organization established by the former president, Yonhap said.
Park Jie-won, a Democratic Party lawmaker who was Kim Dae-jung's chief of staff, told Yonhap the letter indicated Kim Jong Il will send a delegation of five special envoys to the former president's funeral, led by a secretary and a department director of the Workers' Party.
"The North Korean people perceive (Kim Dae-jung) as a democracy fighter and the one who contributed to political reconciliation," Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea studies professor at Dongguk University, told Yonhap. "For Chairman Kim Jong Il, he will be remembered as the most trustworthy South Korean leader."
