South Korea’s parliamentary speaker has asked Pope Leo XIV to consider visiting North Korea during his planned trip to Seoul in 2027, pushing to revive papal diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula following the new pontiff’s election in May.

Speaker Woo Won-shik delivered the letter to Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin during a meeting at the Vatican on Tuesday local time, his office said in a press release on Wednesday.

“If His Holiness could visit the North while attending the Seoul World Youth Day, it would be a great symbol for world peace and peace on the Korean Peninsula,”