South Korea is urging North Korea to respect their earlier agreement on the joint June 15th celebrations.

In a written message to the North Friday, Seoul protested Pyongyang's sudden demand for the South to send a smaller government delegation to celebrations marking the fifth anniversary of the inter-Korean summit.

The message also asked the North to retract its decision to cut back on the size of the civic delegation to the celebrations.

Earlier on Wednesday, Pyongyang demanded that Seoul scale back the number of its government delegates to 30 from 70, and that of its civic delegates to one hundred-90 from more than six hundred.

The South's preparatory committee for the Pyongyang celebrations sent a ten-member delegation to Pyongyang Friday to persuade its Northern counterpart to carry out the joint event as planned for the sake of mutual trust between the two Koreas.