SEOUL, South Korea - South Korean President Lee Myung-bak agreed to meet a visiting high-level delegation from North Korea on Sunday in what is likely to be a test of his 18-month hard-line policy against the communist country.
Relations between the Koreas have been largely frozen since Lee took office in February last year and amid international tensions over the North's nuclear weapons and missile programs.
The visit to Seoul by six North Korean officials to pay their respects following the death of former President Kim Dae-jung has provided a rare opportunity for dialogue. Kim was widely admired by Pyongyang for his efforts to reconcile the two Koreas when he served as president from 1998 to 2003.
Lee's meeting with North Korea's spy chief and five other officials will take place at the presidential Blue House, Chun Hae-sung, a spokesman for South Korea's Unification Ministry, said late Saturday. The ministry handles relations with the North.
No other details were immediately available, and officials at Lee's office could not be reached.
North Korea regularly blasts Lee as a "traitor" and "human scum" and accuses South Korea of conniving with the United States to attack it with nuclear weapons. But Pyongyang has recently offered a series of olive branches to Seoul in an apparently concerted effort to improve relations.
Pyongyang on Aug. 13 released a South Korean worker at a jointly operated industrial complex in North Korea who had been held for months amid allegations he denounced the Pyongyang government. Days later the North also promised to hold more inter-Korean family reunions, restart suspended tours for South Koreans to the North and "energize" a troubled joint industrial project.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il held talks with a leading South Korean businesswoman and expressed a willingness for better relations with Seoul. That came on the heels of his talks with former President Bill Clinton and the release of two American reporters who had been convicted of illegally entering the country.
Paik Hak-soon, an analyst at the Sejong Institute, a security think-tank near Seoul, said Sunday's meeting would help mend fences between the Koreas.
"South Korea should not miss the last opportunity made by former President Kim Dae-jung's death," he said, referring to the fact that the North Koreans would not have visited Seoul had it not been for the passing of the former leader who was respected on both sides of the border.
Paik said the meeting "will open a floodgate of improvements in inter-Korean relations" and that Seoul should not reject the North's conciliatory gestures.
The challenge for Lee will likely be how to accomplish that without appearing to abandon his principles, illustrated by his policy of linking any improvement in relations to progress made by North Korea in eliminating its nuclear weapons program.
Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul's Dongguk University, said Lee was likely reluctant to show much eagerness to meet the North Koreans since it could invite a backlash from conservatives who oppose any indication of softness toward Pyongyang.
Indeed, about 100 demonstrators chanted "topple the Kim Jong Il dictatorship" Saturday near the hotel where the North Korean officials were staying and ripped apart paper North Korean flags. There was a minor scuffle between the activists and police.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the meeting Sunday would take 15 to 20 minutes, and would be slotted in before other meetings Lee has scheduled with foreign delegations attending Kim Dae-jung's state funeral later in the day. The report cited an unidentified official.
Yonhap also said, without citing a source, that the North Koreans were expected to deliver a message from Kim Jong Il and outline Pyongyang's plan to release four South Korean fishermen seized in July. They would also convey the North's position on resuming official dialogue.
The North Koreans arrived in Seoul on Friday and immediately went to the National Assembly to pay respects at a memorial to Kim. They offered a floral wreath in the name of Kim Jong Il to the late president. The two leaders met at the first ever inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang in June 2000.
Kim Yang Gon, the spy chief who also handles relations with South Korea, met for 80 minutes earlier Saturday with South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In-taek. The meeting was the first such top-level encounter in almost two years. Kim and Hyun met again Saturday evening for dinner.
