South Korea urged Pyongyang on Friday to retract its threat to quit a joint tourism project in North Korea that has been a promising symbol of reconciliation.
North Korea announced late Thursday that it would freeze some South Korean
assets at scenic Diamond Mountain, expel South Koreans working at the site and
restart the stalled project with a new partner.
The announcement dealt another setback to inter-Korean relations, which have
foundered over the past two years after a decade of warming ties.
"We are very regretful," Unification Ministry spokesperson Chun Hae-sung said
Friday. "The decision must be retracted immediately."
The two Koreas remain divided by a heavily fortified border but agreed, as part of reconciliation efforts a decade ago, to allow tours to Diamond Mountain.
The shooting death of a South Korean tourist in 2008 by a North Korean soldier
prompted Seoul to suspend the visits. Later that year, with tensions rising, North
Korea halted a popular joint tour to the ancient border city of Kaesong.
Impoverished North Korea recently expressed a willingness to restart the tour
programs, which provide a much-needed influx of hard currency.
South Korea, however, said the North must accept its demands for a joint
investigation into the tourist's death and the establishment of measures to prevent future incidents.
North Korean officials then ordered a survey of South Korean tour operators at the mountain resort, and announced late Thursday in a dispatch carried on state media that the decision was made to go with a new partner, presumably non-South Korean.
Pyongyang has not yet informed the South Korean government or South Korean
firms working at Diamond Mountain of any specific steps, Chun said.
Hyundai Asan, the resort's South Korean tour operator, called Friday on both Koreas to hold talks to resolve the dispute.
The North also said it may re-examine another joint project _ an industrial complex in Kaesong where more than 110 South Korean factories employ some 42,000 North Koreans to produce electronics, watches, shoes and utensils.
"We will never remain a passive onlooker to the puppet conservative group's
confrontation with the (North) and its smear campaign but take resolute
countermeasures one after another," an unidentified North Korean official was
quoted by the official Korean Central News Agency as saying.
Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul's Dongguk University, said the move is aimed at pressuring South Korea into restarting the Diamond Mountain tours. He said the new partner could be a Chinese company.
"The North is using brinkmanship tactics to extract concessions from the South,"
Kim said.
Taiwan News Online 16.05.10 12:07
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