S Korea permits private foundation's trip to DPRK

SEOUL, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- South Korea allowed a delegation from a private organization to visit Pyongyang this week to celebrate the completion of a science and technology university, South Korea's Unification Ministry said Monday.

The celebrating ceremony for the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, jointly built by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Seoul-based Northeast Asia Foundation for Education and Culture, will be held on Wednesday, ministry spokesperson Chun Hae-sung said.

The 20-member delegation, including head of the foundation Kwak Seon-hee, will begin a three-day trip to Pyongyang beginning Tuesday.

The university is marked as the first organization to be jointly operated with an organization not based in the DPRK.

The foundation's trip is the first non-humanitarian visit to the DPRK that the Seoul government approved since the DPRK's nuclear test in May.

The university is to be headed by Kim Jin-kyung, chief of the Yanbian University of Science and Technology in China, while other details of its administrative affairs, including the opening date, is yet to be settled.