S. Korean religious leaders to make joint trip to North Wednesday

SEOUL, Sept. 19 (Yonhap) -- South Korean religious leaders will make a rare joint trip to North Korea this week with permission from the Seoul government, the Unification Ministry said Monday. The 24-member delegation representing the country's seven largest religious groups, including Roman Catholics, Protestants and Buddhists, will fly into Pyongyang via the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang on Wednesday, the ministry said. While staying in Pyongyang for four days, the religious chiefs and their staffers are scheduled to meet with their North Korean counterparts in such places as Pyongyang and Mount Paekdu bordering China, according to the ministry. "The government allowed the religious leaders' trip in consideration of their contribution to inter-Korean exchanges and aspiration for peace on the Korean Peninsula," a ministry official in charge of the permission said. Experts say the rare visit by South Korea's religious chiefs will serve a role in easing high tensions between the two Koreas. Despite denial by the Korean Conference of Religion for Peace (KCRP), the organizer of the visit, some have raised the possibility that the leaders may meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il during the visit. The visit is the latest of a series of visits to North Korea by South Korean cultural and religious officials. South Korean orchestra conductor Chung Myung-whun returned to Seoul on Thursday after a trip to North Korea in which he signed a letter of intent with North Korean musicians to push for regular joint performances of an inter-Korean symphony orchestra. Earlier this month, the Unification Ministry also allowed officials from South Korea's largest Buddhist sect to visit the North, the first religious trip since ties fell to the lowest level in decades after the North's two deadly attacks on the South last year. Meanwhile, Yu Woo-ik, who assumed his post as unification minister earlier on Monday, is scheduled to hold a dinner meeting with the seven religious chiefs at a Seoul hotel.