South Korea stands firm against a private organization's visit to North Korea to arrange a joint event, the unification minister said Wednesday, making clear the government will only accept working-level official talks to resolve all outstanding inter-Korean issues.

Last month, the South Korean Committee for the Joint Implementation of the June 15 Summit Declaration requested government permission to allow its representatives to visit the North's border town of Kaesong to commemorate the anniversary of the declaration made after a historic 2000 inter-Korean summit.

"There is no further need to dwell on the request," Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae told Yonhap News Agency after attending a discussion forum about the Korean Peninsula in parliament. "The government has already laid out its position (banning the visit)."

Ryoo pointed out that the incumbent Park Geun-hye administration's "trust building" policy of easing tensions on the peninsula is founded on the principle of keeping true to what has been said in the past.

The June declaration reached between late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000 heralded a time of rapprochement between the two countries.

The ministry in charge of conducting inter-Korean talks and formulating policies made clear on numerous occasions that present conditions are not favorable for the private group to go to the North. It added that Pyongyang's move only to engage in talks with private organizations that are critical of Seoul's North Korean policy is a ploy to fuel internal discord within South Korea.

The official, meanwhile, said at the forum that people need not be overly concerned about cross-border relations.

"Historically South and North Korea have generally maintained hostile policies toward each other, and even fought a war," he pointed out. He said that dealing with the North requires considerable patience.

The minister added that despite Seoul's stance on not linking non-political issues -- such as humanitarian aid -- with the North's denuclearization, agendas such as large-scale economic cooperation must be considered in the context of getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear arsenal.

The North has said repeatedly that it will never give up its nuclear capability, although its special envoy to China agreed to hold a fresh round of talks to touch on all topics of interest. The communist country detonated its third nuclear device in February and claimed it has succeeded in miniaturizing its weapons. Smaller nuclear warheads can be placed on top of missiles that can give the country considerable striking capability. (Yonhap News)