Kim Jong-il 'delays' South Korea visit

Kim Jong-il had been expected to visit Seoul before June

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By staff and wire reports

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea has delayed a historic visit by its leader Kim Jong-il to South Korea until the second half of this year.

South Korea's Yonhap News Agency on Tuesday quoted a North Korean official as saying the visit would happen, but not as soon as had been hoped.

"There will definitely be a return visit this year, but during the first half of this year seems difficult," the news agency quoted Ma Yong-il, a representative of North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly, as saying at an international parliamentary conference in Cuba.

Seoul had been expecting North Korea's enigmatic leader to visit by June to reciprocate South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's historic visit to Pyongyang last June.

News of the delay comes one day after the South Korean Red Cross said talks with the North about holding more reunions for families separated during the Korean War had been cancelled.

Pyongyang has also cancelled a cabinet-level meeting with the South scheduled for last month and recently backed out of plans to send a unified table tennis team to the world championships in Japan next month.

Korean ties

Inter-Korean ties seemed to have languished since U.S. President George W. Bush told Kim Dae-jung in Washington last month he was skeptical about the North Korean leader and had no immediate plans to resume talks with Pyongyang on improving ties.

The United States considers North Korea a rogue state and while former U.S. president Bill Clinton made inroads into improving ties with the North, Bush has taken a much tougher stance towards the communist state.

However, diplomatic sources told CNN the latest reports of delays between North and South Korea were not necessarily a sign that relations between the two erstwhile enemies were breaking down.

"I don't think you should read too much into it," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"North Korea cancels meetings all the time, and I wasn't aware that there was a specific date set for the visit. There were reports in the media that Kim Jong-il would visit in the spring or summer, but that is about it."

South still positive

Ma is said to have told South Korean reporters it would be "natural" for the North Korean leader to travel to the South by train after October, when the two countries finish re-linking a railway across one of the world's most heavily militarized borders.

But while South Korea has begun clearing landmines from the area, North Korea has delayed implementing its side of the agreement, citing the fact that a South Korean Defense Ministry report continued to describe the North as its "main enemy."

A spokesman at South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles ties with North Korea, said on Tuesday the government was still optimistic the North Korean leader would visit sooner.

"We cannot ignore his (Ma's) comments, but we cannot say that his words are an absolute confirmation of the North's official position," he quoted Vice Minister Kim Hyong-ki as saying.

North Korea's propaganda machine has launched daily diatribes against the Bush administration since the U.S. president threw cold water on resuming the engagement policy the Clinton administration had pursued with Pyongyang.

The United States has 37,000 troops stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War. That conflict left the two Koreas technically still at war because it ended in an armed truce instead of a peace agreement

Reuters contributed to this report.

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