South Korean delegation reaches N. Korea

PYONGYANG, North Korea, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- A group that includes the 90-year-old widow of a former South Korean president traveled to North Korea Monday to pay its last respects to the late Kim Jong Il.

Lee Hee-ho, widow of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun, whose company has joint ventures in the North, and the rest of the 17-member delegation crossed the heavily guarded border between the two Koreas on their way to the wake, Yonhap News Agency reported.

Kim, who led the economically crippled isolated Communist country for 17 years, died Dec. 17. Tensions between the two Koreas remain tense, primarily because of the North's nuclear weapons program.

"I hope that our trip to North Korea will help improve relations between South and North Korea," Yonhap reported Lee said in written a message read by her aide before leaving for the North. Her husband held a historic summit with Kim Jong Il in 2000.

Despite the North's warning about Seoul's reserved response to condolences for Kim Joung Il, the South decided to keep the civilian condolence delegation confined to Lee and Hyun, the news agency said.

South Korea has already expressed sympathies to the "people" of North Korea over Kim Jong Il's death. It also allowed civilians and private groups to send condolence messages to the North, although Pyongyang had said it will accept all condolence delegations from the South.

North Korea had sent separate condolence delegations to Seoul following the deaths of Kim Dae-jung and that of the former chairman of the Hyundai Group, the news agency said.

The delegation led by Lee and Hyun is to return Tuesday ahead of Kim Jong Il's Wednesday funeral, where no foreign delegation would be accepted.