The ruling Grand National Party (GNP) on Wednesday turned down an opposition offer to form a parliamentary condolence delegation over the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Park Geun-hye, interim GNP leader, said that her party should respect the government's position on the issue that the country expresses sympathy to the people of North Korea, but won't send an official condolence delegation.
That represents a rejection of an offer from Rep. Won He-young, a leader of the main opposition Democratic Unity Party (DUP), that the rival parties form a joint condolence delegation to pay a visit to Pyongyang.
Park also questioned whether it is necessary for the parliament to send a delegation when the North said it will not accept overseas delegations for the funeral ceremony scheduled to be held in Pyongyang on Dec. 28.
The daughter of late president Park Chung-hee had met with the late top leader during her visit to Pyongyang in 2002.
Although the North said it will not accept foreign delegations for the funeral ceremony, Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik said intelligence reports suggest that the communist state is willing to accept delegations from South Korea and China.
In a meeting with the leader of the conservative minor Liberty Forward Party at the National Assembly, Yu said Pyongyang accepted foreign delegations from China and private missions from neighboring nations when Kim's father and founding President Kim Il-sung died in 1994.
U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Sung Kim, meanwhile, said during his meeting with Park that the United States and North Korea made considerable progress in bilateral dialogue prior to the North Korean leader's death, according to an informed source.
North Korea and the U.S. had talks in Beijing last week to discuss the terms of food aid. (Yonhap)
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