(3rd LD) Koreas end talks on cross-border tours, North stokes tension

(ATTN: UPDATES with end of discussions, statement by N. Korean security organs;
RECASTS lead, headline; RESTRUCTURES; TRIMS)
SEOUL, Feb. 8 (Yonhap) -- Officials from the two Koreas ended talks Monday on
ways to resume long-suspended cross-border tours, the Unification Ministry said,
as the North raised tension by warning of retaliation against those seeking to
topple its regime.
The ministry did not say if the sides reached an agreement on the tours that the
cash-strapped North hoped would resume immediately even as it refused to agree to
long-standing South Korean demands.
The tours to Mount Kumgang on the east coast and the historic town of Kaesong
near the west coast were a rare cash cow for Pyongyang until their suspension in
2008 when a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean guard at the
mountain.
In a briefing earlier Monday, Chun Hae-sung, spokesman for Seoul's Unification
Ministry, said his side demanded that its officials be granted an on-site
investigation into the shooting.
"The North Korean side responded by reiterating its earlier stance on the
matter," he said, suggesting the North repeated its argument that its own probe
has already given an account.
North Korea raised tension while the talks continued in the border town of
Kaesong, issuing a statement by two of its highest security organs that warned of
"all-out strong measures" against those opposing reconciliation and pushing for a
regime breakdown.
"We have world-level ultra-modern striking force and means for protecting
security which have neither yet been mentioned," said the joint statement by the
Ministry of People's Security and the Ministry of State Security.
Chun said South Korean delegates started talks with their North Korean
counterparts after they briefly paid a silent tribute to Park Wang-ja, the South
Korean housewife shot dead in July 2008.
Park was killed shortly before dawn when she wandered into a restricted zone at
the mountain resort -- which had drawn more than 1.9 million South Koreans since
it began operating in 1998.
"The North did not balk at our paying a tribute," Chun said, adding the North
Koreans called in their keynote speech for "quick resumption" of the tour
projects.
The South demanded the North first guarantee the safety of future South Korean
tourists and implement measures to back its promise, Chun said. Unification
Minister Hyun In-taek instructed the South Korean delegation earlier in the day
to engage in dialogue with the communist North "firmly and confidently," the
spokesman said.
The sides ended their morning session in only about 45 minutes. The afternoon
session ended in just one hour, the ministry said in a message to reporters.
The one-day meeting in Kaesong comes as North Korea gives mixed signals in its
approach to the outside world while under U.N. sanctions imposed on it for its
nuclear and missile tests.
North Korea fired hundreds of artillery shells along its de facto maritime border
with South Korea to raise tension late last month while its top political body,
the National Defense Commission, vowed a "sacred battle" against the South over
reported contingency plans.
South Korea should "immediately disband all the plot-breeding machines and bodies
of the authorities going against national reconciliation," Monday's statement
said, adding the battle has already begun.
Analysts say the North will continue to seek dialogue with the outside world
despite its menacing rhetoric because economic difficulties have prompted it to
seek international aid and trade.
The economic plight for its 24 million people has deepened since North Korea
conducted its second test in May last year, which led to the toughening of the
arms and trade sanctions, they say.
Monday's dialogue comes as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's special envoy is
set to visit North Korea this week while a senior Chinese envoy is in Pyongyang
to apparently persuade the country to return to six-nation talks on its nuclear
arms programs.
Wang Jiarui, head of the Chinese Communist Party's International Department, may
also be carrying an invitation for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to come to
Beijing, they say. Wang has met Kim in his four previous trips to Pyongyang since
2004.
In an apparent conciliatory gesture toward the United States, North Korea on
Saturday released a U.S. missionary it had held since he crossed into the
Stalinist country from China in December with the goal of publicizing human
rights abuses there.
North Korea says it will not return to the nuclear talks unless the international
community lifts sanctions on it. Pyongyang also says Washington must launch
separate negotiations on formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War, saying the truce
signed at the end of the conflict feeds U.S. hostilities against it and hinders
the six-party talks.
The aid-for-denuclearization talks, which began in 2003 and have not been held
since December 2008, group the two Koreas, the U.S., Japan, Russia and host
China.
(END)