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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) inspects the Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast, in this photo provided by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Oct. 23, 2019. Kim ordered the removal of all South Korea-built facilities at the once jointly run tourist spot, according to the KCNA. (Korean Central News Agency) |
Unification Minister Lee In-young will hold meetings this week with the leaders of businesses that participated in the long-suspended tourism project at North Korea's Mount Kumgang to discuss cross-border cooperation and exchanges, his office said Monday.
Lee will meet Tuesday with Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun of Hyundai Group that used to run tours to the scenic mountain on the North's east coast while a meeting with Lee Joong-myung, chairman of Ananti, which used to run a golf course at the mountain resort, is scheduled for Friday, according to the ministry.
"Those meetings were arranged to listen to various opinions from businesspeople at a time when the recent summit between the leaders of South Korea and the United States have created conditions favorable to dialogue and cooperation between the South and the North," Lee Jong-joo, spokesperson of the ministry, told a regular press briefing.
President Moon Jae-in and US President Joe Biden held their first face-to-face summit on May 21 and agreed to engage diplomatically with North Korea and take "pragmatic" steps to reduce tensions. The unification has viewed the summit as creating conditions favorable to the resumption of dialogue with the North.
Launched in 1998, the tour program to Mount Kumgang was regarded as a major inter-Korean cooperative project. Hyundai Asan, an affiliate of Hyundai Group, had been an operator of the tour program to the mountain until it came to a halt in 2008, when a South Korean tourist was fatally shot by a North Korean solider.
At a 2018 inter-Korean summit, the leaders of the two Koreas agreed to resume the tour program as soon as conditions are met but little progress has since been made.
North Korea has demanded South Korea remove the long-abandoned facilities at the mountain since late 2019, saying it plans to build its own international tourist zone in the area. (Yonhap)
