By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter

The government will determine whether the shooting death of a South Korean tourist at Mount Geumgang in North Korea Friday was intentional or not after investigations are completed, the Unification Ministry said Monday.

Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said it was too early to draw any conclusions about the incident since nothing has been clarified.

Cheong Wa Dae, meanwhile, said that Seoul will suspend the tour program until the incident was fully accounted for.

``The killing remains a mystery. We will make clear if it was intentional or not after the investigation is completed,'' Kim told reporters. ``The priority is to form a fact-finding team of officials from related ministries.''

The team consisting of eight experts from the National Police Agency and the National Institute of Scientific Investigation will be led by Hwang Boo-gi, director of the liaison support department at the Office of South-North Dialogue, the spokesman said.

Park Wang-ja, a 53-year-old housewife residing in Seoul, was shot dead by a North Korean soldier while strolling along a beach near her hotel in the Mt. Geumgang resort in the pre-dawn hours.

According to North Korean officials, she strayed into a restricted military area and was killed because of her failure to heed a warning.

Some North Korea experts shared the view that the killing took place accidentally, but others raised suspicions that the North may have taken the excessive measure on purpose.

The North cut all communication channels with the South in retaliation for conservative President Lee Myung-bak's tougher stance toward it.

Spokesman Kim said the government has been running a 24-hour situation room and evacuated 350 remaining tourists from the resort as of Sunday afternoon.

Currently, a total of 1,217 people, including 594 South Korean officials and employees, are at the tourist resort.

Citing bilateral agreements to guarantee personal safety and safe return, the spokesman said the government is calling for permission to investigate the case on the scene.

The South has urged the North to cooperate with the investigation into the killing but the Stalinist state rejected Seoul's request to send officials to investigate Saturday, claiming the responsibility for the incident rests entirely with the South.

CEO Yoon Man-joon of Hyundai Asan, the South's operator of the tourism project, will return from the North Tuesday after getting a briefing on the incident and discussing measures to be taken with North Korean officials.

ksy@koreatimes.co.kr