N. Korea threatens to seize tourist properties from South
Source: Agencies |
April 24, 2010, Saturday
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NORTH Korea said yesterday it will confiscate five South Korean-owned properties at a jointly run mountain resort in the country, likely to worsen already soured relations.
North Korea has been demanding that the South resume tours to the resort, which had been a key source of foreign currency earnings for the nation but were suspended after a North Korean soldier shot a South Korean tourist to death in 2008.
South Korea has refused to restart tours until its demands for a joint investigation into the death are carried out and measures to guarantee the safety of tourists are outlined.
Tensions between the two Koreas are already high after a South Korean navy ship sank last month, killing at least 39 people and leaving seven missing, amid suspicion that North Korea may have been responsible. North Korea has denied involvement.
"The confiscated real estate will be put into the possession of the (North) or handed over to new businessmen according to legal procedures," North Korea said in a statement through Korean Central News Agency yesterday.
The five seized properties were identified as a fire station, a duty-free shop, a reunion center for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, a cultural center where North Korean troupes performed, and a spa.
North Korea also said it will freeze ownership of all the remaining South Korean real estate at the resort on the country's east coast and expel all their management personnel. North Korea warned that it will "take more rigid follow-up measures" if South Korea challenges what the North calls legitimate steps. It did not elaborate.
The two Koreas started the tour program more than a decade ago as part of reconciliation efforts on the divided peninsula, which remains technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
South Korea said it cannot accept the North's move and vowed to strongly deal with what it called North Korea's illegal and unreasonable steps. "We are reviewing specific countermeasures," Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters. He declined to elaborate.
Spokesman Roh Jee-hwan of Hyundai Asan, the main private South Korean tour operator at the resort, had no immediate comment.
Paik Hak-soon, a North Korea analyst at the private Sejong Institute think tank near Seoul, said the tour program fell victim to inter-Korean confrontation and suggested Seoul offer high-level talks with North Korea to resolve the dispute.
North Korea's statement faulted South Korea for linking the sinking of the warship to the North, and called South Korean President Lee Myung-bak a traitor for comments connected with North Korea's celebrations of its late founder's birthday last week.
North Korea has been demanding that the South resume tours to the resort, which had been a key source of foreign currency earnings for the nation but were suspended after a North Korean soldier shot a South Korean tourist to death in 2008.
South Korea has refused to restart tours until its demands for a joint investigation into the death are carried out and measures to guarantee the safety of tourists are outlined.
Tensions between the two Koreas are already high after a South Korean navy ship sank last month, killing at least 39 people and leaving seven missing, amid suspicion that North Korea may have been responsible. North Korea has denied involvement.
"The confiscated real estate will be put into the possession of the (North) or handed over to new businessmen according to legal procedures," North Korea said in a statement through Korean Central News Agency yesterday.
The five seized properties were identified as a fire station, a duty-free shop, a reunion center for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, a cultural center where North Korean troupes performed, and a spa.
North Korea also said it will freeze ownership of all the remaining South Korean real estate at the resort on the country's east coast and expel all their management personnel. North Korea warned that it will "take more rigid follow-up measures" if South Korea challenges what the North calls legitimate steps. It did not elaborate.
The two Koreas started the tour program more than a decade ago as part of reconciliation efforts on the divided peninsula, which remains technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
South Korea said it cannot accept the North's move and vowed to strongly deal with what it called North Korea's illegal and unreasonable steps. "We are reviewing specific countermeasures," Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters. He declined to elaborate.
Spokesman Roh Jee-hwan of Hyundai Asan, the main private South Korean tour operator at the resort, had no immediate comment.
Paik Hak-soon, a North Korea analyst at the private Sejong Institute think tank near Seoul, said the tour program fell victim to inter-Korean confrontation and suggested Seoul offer high-level talks with North Korea to resolve the dispute.
North Korea's statement faulted South Korea for linking the sinking of the warship to the North, and called South Korean President Lee Myung-bak a traitor for comments connected with North Korea's celebrations of its late founder's birthday last week.
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