South Korean party hit by spy case heads North

SEOUL, Oct 31 (Reuters) Top officials of a leftist South Korean political party, some of whose members have been arrested on suspicion of spying for the North, arrived in Pyongyang today for high-level talks and a possible meeting with leader Kim Jong-il.

The Democratic Labour Party group will be the first South Korean political group to meet leaders from the communist state since Pyongyang tested a nuclear device on October 9, but the party has faced criticism for visiting.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service asked the government to deny permission for the DLP trip but was turned down, Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok told parliament today.

The DLP members -- who flew to Pyongyang via Beijing -- were expected to meet the North's nominal No 2 leader, Kim Yong-nam, and have asked to meet Kim Jong-il in an attempt to cool tensions raised by the nuclear test, the party said.

South Korean prosecutors last week arrested five people including one current and one former senior DLP official on suspicion of passing dozens of encoded reports on internal South Korean political matters to the North.

The party has vehemently denied its members had spied for North Korea, saying the arrests were politically motivated.

''Our visit may be the only chance to find out the precise position of the North and lay the foundation for the denuclearisation and peace of the Korean peninsula,'' DLP chairman Moon Sung-hyun said in a statement.

After the arrests, conservative politicians and newspapers who have long backed a clampdown on the communist North asked for a thorough investigation of left-leaning groups who are typically sympathetic toward Pyongyang.

''The (conservative opposition) Grand National Party and dailies are working hard to stir up an anti-communist atmosphere similar to the 1970s and 80s but the public will not fall for these groundless claims,'' the party said in a statement.

Until the South's first, open and direct election for president in 1987, thousands of South Koreans had been imprisoned on charges of spying for North Korea by authoritarian leaders in Seoul, who used the arrests to crack down on dissent.

North Korea said South Korean authorities were ''kicking up a racket'' with the spy arrests.

''Their loud-mouthed spying case only reminds people of the horrible nightmare in the days of the past fascist dictatorial regime,'' its official KCNA news agency said yesterday.

REUTERS AKJ BST1450