By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
Agreements made between South Korea's Hyundai Group and North Korea to resume joint projects, including tours to the North's Mt. Guemgang, are not seen as violating a U.N. resolution on sanctions against the communist state, a Seoul diplomat said Wednesday.
The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1874 ― which imposes tough sanctions on the North ― after it conducted a second nuclear test in May following a ballistic missile launch test a month before.
But the diplomat said details on the implementation of the agreements would be decided after consultations with the United States, which will send a senior envoy overseeing Washington's sanctions on the North to Seoul this weekend.
Philip Goldberg, coordinator for the implementation of the U.N. sanctions on the North for its May nuclear test, left for Asia, according to officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Goldberg leads a delegation of related U.S. officials, they said. He is scheduled to arrive in Seoul on Sunday for a two-day stay after traveling to Singapore and Bangkok.
``Of course, the issue will be discussed during Goldberg's visit," the foreign ministry official was quoted by Yonhap News as saying.
The U.S. State Department's spokesman Ian Kelly said, ``The purpose of this trip... this inter-agency delegation is to discuss the ongoing implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874.
``We expect he will have meetings, of course, with counterparts in the respective foreign ministries and finance ministries and other agencies involved in inspections and customs issues and the like,'' he said.
Goldberg's trip comes as Pyongyang appears to be reaching out to Seoul. The North announced Monday that it would resume joint a tourism venture with Hyundai Asan, a business arm of the Hyundai Group, to Mt. Geumgang on its east coast, and to the ancient capital city of Gaeseong, which has been suspended for more than a year owing to frosty inter-Korean relations.
The announcement followed a four-hour luncheon between North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il and Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun.
South Korean government officials are reviewing ways to follow up on the deal and hope to resume government-level dialogue with Pyongyang to discuss related details.
The inter-Korean ventures, if restarted, may hamper the U.S.-led campaign to curb the inflow of hard currency into the North. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 calls on each country to tighten financial sanctions on Pyongyang in a bid to dry out its financial sources for the development of missiles and nuclear weapons.
Trips by foreigners, mainly South Koreans, to Mt. Geumgang and Gaeseong, apparently funnel cash into North Korea. The North earned about $10 million annually from the tourism business to Mt. Geumgang alone before it was halted last year.
``The resolution does not refer to commercial tourism activity itself. But a problem is where the money is used. It is not legal matter but a political one,'' another ministry official said.