It looks like someone in the Lee Myung-bak administration is thinking the way I have been thinking, to invite Kim Jong-il to a summit in Seoul:

President Lee Myung-bak’s offer to invite North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to the Nuclear Security Summit next March in Seoul if he proves he is willing to denuclearize still stands, a senior Cheong Wa Dae official said Thursday. North Korea had earlier dismissed the offer.

“The invitation is still valid. There’ll be a chance for working-level officials to meet their North Korean counterparts to discuss this in the future,” the official said.

Lee made the offer in Berlin on Monday. But the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland shrugged off the invitation in a statement Wednesday, saying it was “a ridiculous attempt to disarm and invade the North along with the U.S.”

Lee, who has arrived in Paris on the last leg of his Europe trip, also said Thursday he did not expect North Korea to respond quickly to his invitation and even a negative response does not necessarily mean a rejection.

“Perhaps the North isn’t fully aware of the details of our proposal,” added the official, who is accompanying Lee on the trip. “It’s quite a new proposal from our side and there’s still time until the summit. I think we’ll have a chance to have talks with the North about this.”  [Chosun Ilbo]

Like I stated before on this topic, the South Korean government knows very well that Kim Jong-il is not coming to Seoul because it does not fit the propaganda narrative that the North Koreans have created for past summits where be it Kim Dae-jung, Roh Moo-hyun, or even Bill Clinton these leaders are presented to the North Korean public as coming to pay tribute to the all-mighty Kim Jong-il.  By going to Seoul that destroys that propaganda narrative that the regime has carefully crafted over the years.

Despite the futility of the request I recommend making it because it then make Kim Jong-il look like the unreasonable party while at the same time making President Lee look diplomatic by offering the invitation.  As hard as this is to believe there are still plenty of people who look to blame everything on the South Korean government instead of Kim Jong-il.  It will be interesting to see how the usual suspects try to make excuses for Kim Jong-il this time.