Tens of thousands of mourners filled the lawn outside parliament for the state funeral Sunday of ex-President Kim Dae-jung, a longtime defender of democracy and advocate of reconciliation who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to reach out to the Democratic People's Repubic of Korea (DPRK).

A hearse carrying the body of the late former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung leaves the National Assembly during a state funeral in Seoul August 23, 2009. [Agencies]

The funeral was held at the National Assembly where Kim - who endured torture, death threats and imprisonment during his decades as an opposition leader - triumphantly took the oath of office as South Korea's president in 1998.

The mourning for Kim, who died Tuesday at age 85, lasted six days and included a high-level DPRK delegation dispatched by its top leader Kim Jong-il.

The Pyongyang delegation's visit included talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak hours before the funeral, Lee's first high-level contact with the country since taking office. Ties have been tense between the two Koreas since the conservative Lee became president in February 2008, but the talks Sunday with officials bearing a verbal message from Kim Jong-il were "cordial," according to a presidential spokesman.

The two Koreas remain in a state of war because their three-year conflict ended in 1953 in a truce, not a peace treaty. Tanks and troops still guard the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone dividing the two sides.

Thousands of mourners bow during the state funeral of the late former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung at the National Assembly in Seoul August 23, 2009. [Agencies]

Kim Dae-jung, however, was respected on both sides of the border. As president from 1998 to 2003, his "Sunshine Policy" advocated engaging the isolated, nuclear-armed DPRK, and sought to ease reconciliation by plying the impoverished nation with aid.