Former S. Korea first lady set for rare N. Korea visit

“We have seen the gap between South Korea, we will take the next two games seriously”, said Perrin.

A daughter of Indonesia’s founding president has confirmed on Monday that the North Korean leader will be awarded by the Sukarno Center for statesmanship, AFP reported.

It is uncertain whether Lee will meet with Kim Jong-un, but hopes remain high that her visit might ease inter-Korean tensions as the two Koreas celebrate the 70th anniversary of liberation from Japan.

Lee Hee-ho, 93, who was the South’s first lady during Kim’s five-year tenure until 2003, arrived in Pyongyang earlier in the day on a local plane for a four-day humanitarian trip.

Lim, 60, said his goal had been to undermine the North Korean people’s “worship for the leader”, according to the report, a reference to Kim Jong Un, the authoritarian country’s supreme leader.

Lee Hee-ho, center, the wife of late former South Korean President…

And Lee’s visit – personally approved by Kim Jong Un – may offer a window for resuming a dialogue over relatively non-political issues, said Jeung Young-tae, an analyst at the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification.

Kim Dae-jung, who died in 2009, was a strong supporter of rapprochement with Pyongyang and held landmark inter-Korean summit talks in 2000 with Kim Jong Un’s father and late North Korean leader Kim Jong Illinois. But it has not asked Lee to convey a special message to the North on the Seoul government’s behalf, as Lee will visit the North in a private capacity.

Kim is not the first North Korean leader to receive the award.

Lee is to visit a children’s hospital and nursery in Pyongyang.

Meanwhile, the Mount Kumgang tourism program has been shut down since the shooting death of South Korean tourist Park Wang-ja by North Korean guards in the wee hours of July 11, 2008.