NK seeking to resume tourism project

By Kim Se-jeong

North Korea appears to be seeking to resume the tours by South Koreans to Mt. Geumgang, which have been suspended since July 2008 following the fatal shooting of a tourist, through the ongoing Red Cross talks, observers here said Friday.

The Red Cross officials of the two Koreas met Friday in the North’s city of Gaeseong for the second time in a week for talks aimed at resuming reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

The sides, which remain technically at war after the 1950-53 war ended in a truce, failed to agree on the venue for such reunions when they met in Gaeseong last Friday.

Analysts say the North appears to be trying to coax South Korea into resuming its cross-border tours to the Mt. Geumgang resort.

Since a South Korean woman was shot dead while wandering near the resort in July 2008, Seoul has suspended the tours, demanding Pyongyang allow an on-site probe and eliminate safety concerns.

Angry with the suspension, North Korea has either frozen or seized all South Korean facilities at the resort earlier this year, lambasting Seoul for losses that it has incurred due to the suspension of the tours.

North Korea said earlier this week it would send two officials in charge of the tourism project to the new round of negotiations on family reunions in Gaeseong. The South, which does not acknowledge the validity of the North’s seizure of its facilities, responded by saying that its existing Red Cross delegates would be tasked with handling the issue.

“The discussions will revolve around the reunion venue for the moment,” Kim Eyi-do, a South Korean Unification Ministry official who heads the Red Cross delegation, told reporters before departing for the North for the new round of talks.

The unification ministry only said it couldn’t confirm anything with regard to the Mt. Geumgang tour.

Beginning in 1998, the tour operated by South’s Hyundai Asan has drawn more than 1 million tourists. After a decade of operation it was suspended in 2008 after a 53-year-old South Korean tourist was shot dead while walking along the resort’s beach. The North claimed the tourist, who entered the off-limit military zone, was to blame, while the South demanded an on-the-spot inquest, which the North refused to do.