Lee says N.K. reaction to invitation not official one

COPENHAGEN (Yonhap News) -- President Lee Myung-bak said Thursday he does not expect North Korea to respond quickly to his offer to invite leader Kim Jong-il to an international summit in Seoul next year and even a negative response does not necessarily mean a rejection.

Lee made the remark a day after the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland denounced his offer as "ridiculous" and an attempt to disarm and invade the communist nation with the United States in Pyongyang's first reaction to the proposal.

"There has been no word (from North Korea). I didn't expect to hear (from the North) quickly," Lee said at a joint news conference with Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen after summit talks in Copenhagen. "Whatever reaction it may be, we don't have to take it as it is. It should be interpreted in various ways."

The remark is seen as meaning that Lee does not take Wednesday's reaction from the North's committee as an official response to the proposal because the committee is a propaganda outlet.

Lee also urged the North to open up to the outside world and join the international community so as to make the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons and to get the North's broken economy back on its feet again.

Lee made the invitation offer in Berlin earlier this week, saying he is willing to invite the North's leader to the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul next March if Pyongyang makes a firm commitment to give up its nuclear programs and apologizes for last year's two deadly attacks on the South.