The Ministry of Unification rejected Sunday North Korea's demand that South Koreanofficials should visit a South Korea-backed mountain resort in the communist stateTuesday, to discuss its plan to freeze South Korean assets at the resort. Last week, the North announced that it would scrap the Mt. Geumgang resort projectwith South Korea and seek a new partner unless the South complies with a survey ofthe assets.
It said five real estate assets on the resort compound ― a family reunion center, afire brigade, a cultural center, a hot springs resort and a tax office ― will be frozen.Pyongyang threatened that it will also re-examine the operation of an inter-Korean industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Gaeseong.
"We won't comply with their demands," ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told
reporters. The latest provocation by the North is construed as an attempt to pressure the South to resume the lucrative cross-border project suspended in 2008, after a South Korean female tourist was shot dead during a tour to the Mt. Geumgang resort.
The South has called for the North to agree to a joint on-site investigation into the death of the tourist and offer a state-to-state guarantee of tourists' safety before the tour resumes. Pyongyang has not responded to the demands.
North Korea has notified Hyundai Asan, the South Korean organizer of the tourism program, of the plan to freeze the assets, saying officials representing the owners of the properties should respond and attend relevant meetings at the resort.The ministry denounced the North for violating inter-Korean agreements and calledon Pyongyang to engage in "serious and productive" dialogue over the resumption of the 12-year-old tour project.
The mountain tourism project had been a key symbol of inter-Korean rapprochement that flourished after the first inter-Korean summit in June 2000.
Nearly 2 million South Koreans visited the scenic mountain before the suspension.
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