N. Korea eager for dialogue with South Korea: lawmaker

North Korea has a strong will for dialogue with South Korea but it continues to set a halt to the cross-border spread of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets as a precondition, a South Korean lawmaker said Tuesday after a rare visit to the communist nation.

Rep. Park Jie-won of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy met with Won Dong-yon, vice chairman of the North's Asia-Pacific Committee, during a visit to an inter-Korean industrial complex in the North's border city of Kaesong.

Park went there to deliver a wreath commemorating the third anniversary Wednesday of the death of the North's late leader, Kim Jong-il, the father of the current leader, Kim Jong-un.

“I got an impression that North Korea has a strong will for dialogue,” Park told reporters. “Vice chairman Won said he hopes that the South and the North will promote reconciliation and cooperation next year, when they celebrate the 15th anniversary of the June 15 Declaration,” referring to an agreement reached at the

2000 historic summit between the South's late president, Kim Dae-jung, and Kim Jong-il.

Won, however, said the two Koreas will be able to recover mutual trust only when the South stops the scattering by activists of leaflets critical of Pyongyang, according to the lawmaker.

Park served as chief of staff to the late South Korean president during his term from 1998 to 2003. Currently, he works as vice president of the Seoul-based Kim Dae-jung Peace Center.

In August, the North conveyed a wreath to the center on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of Kim Dae-jung's death. (Yonhap)