Seoul refuses N.Korean summons over resort dispute

SEOUL — Seoul on Sunday rejected Pyongyang's demand that South Korean

officials come to a North Korean resort where the communist regime is about to

freeze South Korean assets, worsening bilateral ties.

North Korea wants South Korean officials present on Tuesday when it freezes the

assets, Seoul's unification ministry spokesman Chun Hae-Sung said.

However Seoul will not comply with the summons, he said.

The North last week threatened to freeze assets at the Mount Kumgang resort afterpressing Seoul in vain to lift its ban on tours to North Korea, which once earned theimpoverished state tens of millions of dollars a year.

The North also declared its cross-border tour business deal with South Korean firmHyundai Asan void, threatening to find a new partner to replace it and to expelsome South Korean personnel.

Seoul suspended the cross-border tours in July 2008 after North Korean soldiers

shot dead a South Korean housewife who strayed into a military zone.

South Korea demands firm agreements on the safety of visitors, a joint

investigation into the shooting and the North's apology for the killing.

The North says it has already given safety guarantees.

The latest tit-for-tat reflects the deterioration in relations since the South's

conservative government took office in 2008 and took a tougher line with

Pyongyang, linking economic cooperation with the North to progress on its nuclear disarmament.

The North's official Minju Joson newspaper said Sunday the collapsing tour deal "is the inevitable consequence entailed by the moves of the South Korean authorities to escalate the confrontation with fellow countrymen."

It accused Seoul of overturning previous agreements on resuming the tours, which began in 1998.

Nearly two million South Koreans had travelled to the North in the past decade,

earning it some 487 million dollars.

North Korea is also suffering economically from tougher sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council since Pyongyang's second nuclear test in 2009.

It says it will freeze five Seoul-owned assets -- a family reunion centre, a fire

station, a culture centre, a spa and a duty free shop -- in the Mount Kumgang

resort, but did not specify how, Seoul officials said Sunday.

The South has urged the North to reverse its decision, saying the communist state is breaching business contracts and international norms.

Pyongyang also threatens to re-examine an industrial park with the South at

Kaesong just north of the border.

Some 42,000 North Koreans work at 110 South Korean-funded plants at Kaesong,

which like Kumgang is a valuable source of scarce hard currency for the North.

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