N Korea threatens to cancel trip by South’s former first lady

As is widely known, her husband received the Nobel Peace Prize for his “sunshine” policy of engaging North Korea. Badges bearing images of North Korean leaders are a tradition in North Korea, though this is the first time Kim Jong Un’s face would be placed in the same portrait badge as his father, Kim Jong Illinois, and his grandfather, Kim Illinois Sung.

“It depends on the puppets’ attitude whether Ms. Lee’s visit may go ahead as planned”, said the statement carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency.

An audience with Kim Jong-Un would be significant, as the reclusive leader has yet to meet with any South Korean citizen since formally assuming power more than three years ago.

Seoul has said that it will fully support Lee’s visit in any way it can. “I hope through this trial we can uncover this constitutional principle”, Kim told reporters outside the court which held its first day of hearing behind closed doors, AFP reported.

Although the trip would ostensibly be a humanitarian one, there is a chance that Lee might meet with Kim Jong-Un in what would be seen as a mutual gesture of inter-Korean reconciliation.

Earlier this week, a group of three North Korean sailors defected to South Korea after their boat drifted into South Korean waters, the New York Times reported.

“If the South keeps holding them against their will, we would take stern countermeasures”, the North’s Red Cross chief Kang Su-Rin was quoted as saying by Pyongyang’s official website, Uriminzokkiri.

North Korea is believed to have dispatched about 50,000 laborers to an estimated 40 countries to earn hard currency as it has been under heavy United Nations sanctions due to its nuclear and missile tests and strained relations with South Korea.

Seoul repatriated two North Korean fishermen rescued off the east coast in February and five others last month after investigators confirmed their wish to return home.

These types of rescues in South Korean waters are not unprecedented.