Panel suggests talks over Geumgang tours

A presidential advisory panel on national reunification has recommended to President Lee Myung-bak inter-Korean talks for the resumption of tours to the Mount Geumgang resort in North Korea.

The recommendation by the National Unification Advisory Council came as Seoul has softened its hard-line stance toward Pyongyang to improve ties soured by two deadly attacks last year.

“Although the North rejected our offer for comprehensive talks on the resumption of the tour program, the possibility at this point of the North accepting the offer is high,” the council said in its recent policy recommendation to Lee.

The council recommended that Seoul propose holding talks among government officials and civilian businesses first to address a set of issues including the North’s confiscation of South Korean assets at the east coast resort, before the government-level meeting to discuss inter-Korean economic cooperation at large.

The Mount Geumgang tours have been suspended since a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean soldier there for allegedly trespassing into a restricted area in July 2008.

The tours were a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation following the first-ever inter-Korean summit in 2000 and an important source of foreign currency for the cash-strapped North.

The South has maintained that tours will not resume until the North provides a better explanation for the shooting and guarantees safety measures for visitors in the future.

Regarding the preconditions Seoul has demanded for the resumption of the tours, the council recommended that the government apply flexibility in dealing with the issue.

The council also said that Seoul should “take caution” when it considers holding a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

“Should there be an inter-Korean summit, there should be an apology for North Korea’s provocations. The agenda should be denuclearization and the normalization of inter-Korean relations,” it said in the recommendation.

The North is said to have raked in $1.5 million in 2006 and $2 million in 2007 through the tour program. Following the suspension of the tours to the mountain, tours to Gaeseong have also been suspended.

Since taking office in 2008, the conservative president had taken a hard-line policy linking its economic assistance to Pyongyang’s denuclearization.

The sinking of the corvette Cheonan in March 2010 and the shelling of Yeonpyeongdo last November sent peninsular tensions soaring as the two incidents took the lives of 50 South Koreans including two civilians.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)