Kim Dae-jung was president of South Korea between 1997 and 2003, and was a forceful proponent of relations with North Korea’s Stalinist regime, which led to a historic meeting with North Korean President Kim Jong-il in 2000. Thanks to the efforts of the deceased president, family members from both Koreas were able to meet after years of separation. Furthermore, the impoverished North received aid from its neighbors in the South.
Kim Dae-jung’s family invited North Korean authorities to the burial, and these authorities utilized the opportunity to officially visit South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. The North Korean delegation delivered a message from their president, Kim Jong-il. According to South Korean authorities, this is in any event an “advance in inter-Korean relations”, which relations had become distant due to the renewal of the North Korean nuclear program.
*(Translation provided by Iuslingua LLC.)*
