South Korea said yesterday it would only resume tours to North Korea if Pyongyang provided safety guarantees, rejecting the regime’s threat to confiscate Seoul’s assets at a resort north of the border.
The Unification Ministry, which handles relations with Pyongyang, expressed deep regret about the North’s latest warning, saying it violated international norms and cross-border agreements.
The Seoul-funded Mount Kumgang resort once earned the cash-strapped North tens of millions of dollars a year.
But the South Korean government suspended the tours after a North Korean soldier shot dead a Seoul housewife who had strayed into a poorly marked military zone in July 2008.
Sanctions-hit North Korea is increasingly impatient to restart the business. The South says the two governments must first reach firm agreements on the safety of South Korean visitors.
In its latest message on the issue, the North said all South Koreans with assets at Kumgang should visit the resort by March 25.
“All assets of those who do not meet the deadline will be confiscated and they will not be able to visit Mount Kumgang again,” it said.
South Korea’s Hyundai developed the east coast resort as a symbol of reconciliation, with tours there starting in 1998. A luxury hotel, a golf course and other facilities have remained unused since the shooting.
“We have not changed our stand ... that the security of our tourists must first be secured in order for tours to resume,” ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said yesterday, calling for more talks on the issue.
Chun said it was up to other parties whether to visit Kumgang by Thursday, but the Seoul government had no plans to do so.
The Kumgang trips were the first-ever such tours between the two nations.
Hyundai, whose founder Chung Ju-yung was a fervent believer in reunification, invested hundreds of millions of dollars developing Kumgang and a joint industrial estate in the town of Kaesong.
Affiliate Hyundai Asan, which runs the cross-border businesses, said it was still deciding whether to visit Kumgang before Thursday. It called for the two sides to compromise so that tours could quickly resume, noting it had invested a total of 226 billion won (US$199.3 million) in Kumgang alone.
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