SKorean presidential aid heads to North

Seoul, Mar 6: A special adviser to South Korea's president will visit Pyongyang this week, a senior lawmaker said today, while local media reported that Seoul may be looking to arrange a North-South summit.

Lee Hae-chan, a former prime minister in Roh Moo-hyun's government, will arrive in Pyongyang tomorrow and meet communist North Korea's number two leader, Kim Yong-nam.

''Lee will visit to discuss various issues, including promoting inter-Korean cooperation,'' Chung Sye-kyun, a senior member of South Korea's Uri Party told reporters.

Yonhap news agency and other South Korean media have cited political analysts as saying Lee may be trying to arrange a meeting between Roh and the reclusive state's leader, Kim Jong-il.

Roh administration officials have repeatedly denied speculation they are planning a second summit of the leaders of the divided peninsula. They say that as Roh only has a year left in office, there is not enough time to hold a meaningful summit.

The only summit was in June 2000 between Kim and then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. That led to a warming of ties between the two states, which are technically still at war.

Lee's visit will come on the heels of the first high-level contact between the two Koreas in seven months, which took place last week in Pyongyang.

Ties between the two were chilled by Pyongyang's missile tests last July and its first nuclear test the following October.

But North Korea's decision last month at six-country talks to shut down its sole operating nuclear reactor and source of its weapons-grade plutonium in return for aid have helped put inter-Korean cooperation back on track.

Reuters

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