Koreas in war of nerves ahead of talks on cross-border tours

SEOUL, Feb. 4 (Yonhap) -- Ahead of next week's crucial inter-Korean talks on
resuming long-suspended tours to a scenic mountain and an ancient city in North
Korea, Seoul and Pyongyang are locked in a standoff over the makeup of the
North's delegation.
North Korea said in a Wednesday message that unspecified officials of its
Asia-Pacific Peace Committee will attend the tourism talks slated for Monday in
the North's border town of Kaesong. The Asia-Pacific committee is a North Korean
state organization handling inter-Korean affairs.
But South Korea has asked the North to send government delegates with the
authority to negotiate safety measures for South Korean tourists.
The North Korean committee again sent a message to Seoul's Unification Ministry
on Thursday, saying that representatives essentially overseeing tour businesses
with complete authority will come to the Monday talks. The committee still
refused to identify the North's delegates.
Officials at the Unification Ministry here said the South will finalize its
stance on whether to attend the talks after confirming the makeup of the North's
delegates.
The tours to Mount Kumgang on the North's east coast and the ancient city of
Kaesong near the west coast were suspended in 2008, when inter-Korean ties were
fraying and a South Korean tourist was shot dead after entering a restricted zone
at the mountain resort.
South Korea has said that a joint on-site investigation into the shooting must be
allowed and that safety measures must be implemented before Seoul considers
restoring the tours.
Having declared its intent to improve relations with the South in its New Year's
message, the North has made a series of proposals this year for talks on
cross-border ventures.
The South had bypassed the North's Asia-Pacific committee when it sent a message
Wednesday demanding that the North send officials with the authority to guarantee
safety measures for South Korean visitors should the tours resume in future.
The demand was delivered to an organ in charge of inter-Korean projects within
the North's ruling Workers' Party, a gesture suggesting that the committee lacks
power to handle the issue. South Korea officials say that a North Korean
delegation should include party or Cabinet officials.
"Our government will decide (whether to attend the talks) after reviewing the
list of delegates" that the committee said it will soon send, ministry spokesman
Chun Hae-sung told reporters in Seoul.
The committee did not say in its message whether the North will group party or
Cabinet officials into its delegation, Chun said.
Analysts say the communist state has been cornered into seeking revenue from
outside as it tries to buttress its bid to engineer a hereditary power succession
after having funneled its scarce resources into building weapons of mass
destruction for years.
Mount Kumgang tours earned the North over US$480 million in fees before they were
suspended. More than 1.9 million South Koreans had visited the mountain since the
tours opened in 1998.
North Korea has also demanded this week that South Korea drastically raise wages
for North Korean workers at a joint industrial complex built on the outskirts of
Kaesong.
South Korea says productivity should increase first, calling on the North to
focus on improving infrastructure and easing border restrictions when the sides
meet for discussions.
The two Koreas remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a
truce rather than a peace treaty. Despite two summit meetings over the past
decade, their relations frayed quickly after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak
took office in 2008 with a pledge to tie reconciliation to progress in North
Korean denuclearization.
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