Koreas to begin talks over Mount Geumgang
Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul, left, briefs Yoon Sang-hyun, chairman of the National Assembly's Foreign and Unification Committee, at the Assembly, Friday. Yonhap
By Kim Yoo-chul
By Kim Yoo-chul
South Korea has accepted an offer from North Korea to discuss issues relating to the fate of South Korea-built buildings at Mount Geumgang in North Korea, after the North announced its plans to remove facilities there, Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said Friday.
“The North sent a notice to the ministry about the Mount Geumgang issue and we accepted an offer of discussion,” Kim told Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun at the National Assembly, according to press pool reports. “As facilities in the resort area were built by a South Korean company, we have to explore ways how to protect intellectual properties.”
Yoon is chairman of the Assembly's Foreign and Unification Committee.
The unification minister added that his ministry was in close consultations with Hyundai Asan, the South Korean company that has exclusive rights to resort-related businesses at Mount Geumgang, to fine-tune strategies for the upcoming discussions.
Since 1998, Hyundai has invested about 786 billion won there. But there have been no South Korean tours to the resort since 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean woman.
“Because North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he would welcome South Koreans anytime, the ministry's position is it's highly unlikely the North will completely exclude South Korea from the resort business in Mount Geumgang,” the unification minister told Yoon.
The North Korean leader recently ordered the demolition of all South Korea-built facilities there, and demanded that all structures there be rebuilt to “meet our own sentiment and aesthetic taste.” The unification minister did not elaborate on whether the government will team up with Hyundai to rebuild facilities at the resort.
President Moon Jae-in agreed with the North Korean leader last year that they should resume Mount Geumgang tours “once the conditions are prepared.” But the negotiations between the countries over the plan have not progressed mostly because U.S. President Donald Trump does not want the inter-Korean project to resume. Mount Geumgang is a key money source for the impoverished North, but economic sanctions are still in place.