By Seo Dong-shin & Joint Press Corps
Staff Reporter


PYONGYANG, North Korea _ North Korean officials pledged not to abandon the tourism business at Mt. Kumgang, which is run by Hyundai Asan from the South, according to Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, who is visiting Pyongyang for the 16th round of inter-Korean Cabinet talks.

Ri Jong-hyuk, vice chairman of the North’s Asia-Pacific Peace Committee which oversees the tourism business with the South, will soon meet Hyun Jeong-eun, chairwoman of the South’s Hyundai Group, to resolve the frictions, Chung told reporters Thursday, quoting unnamed North Korean officials.

Hyundai Asan, a business arm of the Hyundai Group, has had de facto exclusive rights to organize South Korean tourists’ trips to the North, since the late Chung Ju-yung, founder of the group, initiated the project in 1998.

But relations have turned sour recently after Hyun sacked Hyundai Asan CEO Kim Yoon-kyu for his alleged embezzlement. Kim has participated in the tourism project from the beginning with late chairman Chung and has built close ties with North Korean officials.

The North responded to Kim’s dismissal last month by announcing it would halve the number of South Korean visitors to Mt. Kumgang from this month to 600 per day.

The North’s change of attitude came a day after Minister Chung said the Seoul government would actively mediate between North Korea and Hyundai as the tourism business at Mt. Kumgang involves the South’s taxpayers’ money.

``I stressed that the recent steps of the North angered the public opinion in the South and that the breakdown of the Mt. Kumgang tours, a symbolic business for inter-Korean economic cooperation, would be bad for the North as well as the South,’’ Chung said.

North Korean officials agreed, while saying that they were ``very disappointed’’ with the rupture in the business caused by Hyundai’s internal feuding and that they had had doubts on the company’s will to pursue the business further, according to Chung. But they had no intention to drop the business altogether and made it clear that they believed ``things will get better,’’ Chung said.

The unification minister also said it would be ``common sense’’ to expect the North will continue the tourism business with Hyundai.

Earlier, rumors had it that the North might change its Southern business partner to Lotte Tours. On Tuesday, the company claimed that it received an offer to participate in the tourism project from the North.

Chung, who is deeply involved in the 6-nation talks on the North’s nuclear programs, said that he delivered a U.S. message to the North which he received from Christopher Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state in Seoul Monday.

In the message, the U.S. said that it hoped substantial progress would be made at the six-nation talks in Beijing, Chung said.

``Hill said that the U.S.’ will to normalize its ties with North Korea remains unchanged and that the Beijing talks are a good opportunity to build mutual trust between them,’’ Chung said.

Chung said he also delivered a message from Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the North, which called for an early resumption of the talks to normalize ties between Japan and North Korea. The North did not respond immediately, but South Korean delegates told their Northern counterparts that it would help improve their bilateral relations, according to Chung.

saltwall@koreatimes.co.kr