Report: North Korea rejected messages from Seoul during Lee visit

SEOUL, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Former First Lady Lee Hee-ho's trip to North Korea ended without a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and a source at the Kim Dae-jung Peace Center said Seoul's effort to contact Pyongyang through a separate channel might be partly responsible.

South Korea's Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee told reporters on Monday Seoul had sent requests for communication to Pyongyang daily from Aug. 5 to Aug. 10, a period that overlapped with Lee's visit, South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh reported.

The message included South Korean proposals to open dialogue on possible events including a North-South family reunion, a joint observance of the 70th anniversary of liberation on Aug. 15 and the resumption of tourism, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

North Korea rejected the transmission and did not confirm receipt, according to Seoul.

"The fact that North Korea did not even confirm receipt of the letter indicates [the North] does not even have rudimentary manners in place when it comes to inter-Korea relations," Jeong said on Monday.

News of Seoul's attempts to deliver messages to the North, however, was not well received by one source at the Kim Dae-jung Peace Center, the organization that funded the recent trip to Pyongyang.

The spokesman said the South Korean government should have notified Lee's team, and that move may have better coordinated efforts to reach out to Pyongyang and to Kim Jong Un.

"[Seoul] made things difficult [in Pyongyang]," the contact told Yonhap, and added that Lee's team did not know of Seoul's activities until a day after their arrival.

"We were baffled," the source said.

"We detected a negative reaction from the North because the affairs of the Kim Dae-jung Peace Center were being mixed in with government work."

Seoul said on Monday it has requested dialogue with Pyongyang 20 times since December and that the door for talks is always open.