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.
Despite the North's reaction, a presidential aide also said that the proposal is not dead yet.
"As this is a topic that we newly put forward and there is a lot of time left until the Nuclear Security Summit, I think there will be an
opportunity to communicate with North Korea on this," the official said in Copenhagen, Denmark, where Lee is on a state visit to this European nation.
The official also said it appears the North does not have a full understanding of Lee's offer.
"Wouldn't there be working-level contact?" the official said. "As we've got no official position from North Korea, I think there will be an opportunity to communicate with North Korea in any way in the future."
Lee's offer came as South Korea has increased pressure on North Korea to take concrete steps to demonstrate its denuclearization commitment before opening the six-party nuclear talks. The
negotiations have been stalled since December 2008 due to Pyongyang's boycott and tensions over the North's deadly attacks on the South last year.
North Korea has called for unconditional resumption of the negotiations, but Seoul and Washington have demanded that Pyongyang, which has a track record of abusing the negotiations to extract concessions, first prove that it is serious about giving up nuclear programs.
About 50 global leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, will attend the second international summit in late March to discuss
steps to make the world safer without the threat of atomic weapons.
The U.S. hosted the inaugural summit last year.