Monday, July 11, 2011

Two Koreas agree more talks on seized resort

Reclusive North Korea has agreed to hold a second round of talks with South Korea this week to try to resolve a row over Pyongyang's decision to seize a South Korean company's assets at a jointly run resort, an official said.

A Unification Ministry official said the South would send 14 delegates, including government officials and business people, to the talks at the Mount Kumgang resort on the North's east coast on Wednesday. A similar visit two weeks ago failed to resolve the issue.

Last month the North said it had revised a law overseeing the joint tourism project, effectively ending Hyundai Asan's contract to exclusively run all cross-border tours to the resort.

The North wants to redevelop the resort, which has been shuttered since 2008 after Seoul suspended tours following the fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist there.

Mount Kumgang had been a lucrative source of hard currency for the destitute North under two liberal governments in the Seoul. At its peak, the Mount Kumgang tour programmes attracted 300,000 tourists a year.

Earlier this month, the North gave investors from the South until July 13 to come to the resort to sort out their assets or risk Pyongyang taking unspecified steps to dispose of them.