By Oh Young-jin
Staff Reporter
How seriously should North Korea's latest threat be taken regarding South Korea's plan to develop tours around the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the four kilometer-wide buffer that separates the two Koreas?
Gangwon Province, which is leading this tourism initiative, is trying to downplay it, obviously, because it would damage their prospects. North Korea is widely known for its empty threats, although it occasionally matches its words with action, preventing the outside world from ignoring them entirely.
"We think that North Korea's threat came against the background of surveys and reporters' trips in connection with the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War that falls on June 25," an official for the province's DMZ tourism organizing agency.
The official, however, said that there is no need to be alarmed about it because DMZ tours, contrary to how they sound, will not take tourists into the "forbidden zone" but places south of it that have historic and environmental value.
The DMZ has been in place with few people allowed there, meaning that it maintains a pristine state of nature. It also has many battlegrounds that saw some of the fiercest battles in the 1950-1953 war because the final stage of the war was stalemated around the area.
The latest North Korean threat came on March 29 when it said through its spokesman for its representative office at the truce village of Panmunjeom, "South Korea is conducting anti-North Korean psychological warfare," regarding surveys and trips by journalists near the DMZ.
"If these activities are not stopped, it could entail the loss of human lives and result in a situation of an unpredictable nature," it said.
According to Gangwon Province officials, DMZ tours will involve opening up North Korean underground infiltration tunnels; frontline observation facilities and some famous battlegrounds. All those included in DMZ tours are already open to the public on a selective basis.
"Our DMZ tours are repackaging the sites that are already open to the public," a province official said, accenting that trips by civilian tourists into DMZ are forbidden and their products are not aimed at taking tourists inside the danger zone.
Gangwon also plans to develop additional tour products from a DMZ marathon and a walking competition scheduled for September in Cheorwon.
Last year, about 1,200 Chinese and Japanese tourists used the province's tour products that are being offered in the broader DMZ tours. This year, the number is projected to double.
The province expects a surge in the number of Japanese tourists to over 1,000 thanks to its cooperation with big Japanese tour agencies. Province officials said that especially Japanese students are interested in DMZ eco-tours.