South Korea's Lee to invite North to inauguration

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's president elect Lee Myung-bak, who has pledged to take a tough line on North Korea, will ask the communist neighbor to send a representative to his inauguration in February, an aide reportedly said on Tuesday.

North Korea's official media has made no mention of Lee, a conservative former mayor of Seoul who once ran Hyundai's construction arm, after he won South Korea's presidential election on December 19.

Lee plans to send an envoy to North Korea to deliver an invitation to attend his February 25 inauguration, a member of Lee's team told Yonhap news agency.

"(The South) should send a special envoy to North Korea in January so that an official at least from the deputy premier level or higher can attend the presidential inauguration ceremony in February," Korea University Professor Nam Sung-wook, a senior aide on North Korea policy, said in an interview with Yonhap.

Lee has promised to review the North Korea policy of outgoing President Roh Moo-hyun, criticized for being too soft on the communist state whose government has continued to develop nuclear weapons and maintained a dismal human rights record.

"There's no change in my belief that (the new government) should offer dialogue with North Korea," Nam said.

In his first news conference after the election, Lee called on the North to give up its nuclear weapons and improve the way it treats its citizens.

North Korea bristles at any criticism of its rights record, considered to be among the worst in the world. In the early days of his election victory five years ago, Roh apparently angered Pyongyang by mentioning its human rights abuses.

(Reporting by Yoo Choonsik and Jon Herskovitz)