S. Korea begins staff withdrawal from mountain resort in N. Korea

(ATTN: RECASTS headline, first 3 paras)
SEOUL, May 2 (Yonhap) -- Dozens of South Korean-hired Chinese workers pulled out
of North Korea on Sunday after Pyongyang expelled them in anger over Seoul's
refusal to resume lucrative cross-border tours to a mountain resort in the
communist country.
Thirty-six ethnic Koreans from China, who worked at the Mount Kumgang resort in
North Korea as employees of South Korean firms, crossed the border into the
South, according to Hyundai Asan, the main developer and operator of the
now-suspended tours to the resort.
"All ethnic Koreans from China plan to go back to their home country tomorrow," a
Hyunsai Asan official said.
Two dozen South Korean company officials plan to withdraw from the resort on
Monday, company officials said.
On Friday, North Korea ordered all but 16 employees of South Korean firms at the
resort to leave by Monday morning in a series of angry steps seen as aimed at
pressuring Seoul to resume the tours. Earlier, the North froze most of the
privately owned South Korean assets at the resort.
The tours, which began in 1998, had been a prominent symbol of reconciliation
between the rival states that are still technically at war after the 1950-53
Korean War ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. Nearly 2 million South
Koreans have visited the scenic mountain.
South Korea suspended the program in 2008 after one of its citizens was shot dead
by a North Korean guard after entering a restricted area near the resort. Seoul
has demanded a state-to-state guarantee of tourist safety, as well as a joint
on-site probe into the death before the tours resume.
North Korea says it did everything to assure tourist safety in a deal that leader
Kim Jong-il struck with the head of the tour's main South Korean organizer,
Hyundai Asan, last year.
Despite the North's pressure, South Korea has shown no signs of backing down from
its position.
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