SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Lee Myung-bak will meet a delegation of visiting North Korean officials on Sunday, a government official said, as a report said they were bearing a message from the communist country's leader.

Relations between Pyongyang and Seoul have been tense since Lee took office in February 2008 and he has not previously held talks with any officials from the North.

They will meet Sunday morning at the presidential Blue House, said Chun Hae-sung, a spokesman for South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles relations with the North.

No other details were immediately available, and officials at Lee's office could not be reached.

The six North Korean officials — including the country's spy chief — arrived in Seoul on Friday to mourn former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. Kim, a champion of inter-Korean cooperation and dialogue who served as president from 1998 to 2003, died Tuesday at age 85.

The visit comes amid recent signs of a thaw in relations between the two sides, which have remained divided since the end of the Korean War in 1953.