Hyundai Asan not notified of ban on tour program to N. Korea

SEOUL, Nov. 12 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's Hyundai Asan Corp. said Wednesday that it has yet to receive an official notice from North Korea on the suspension of its tour program to a historic city in the North, despite Pyongyang's announcement to restrict border crossings.

Hyundai Asan operates a tour program to the border city of Kaesong that is also
the location of an inter-Korean industrial complex. North Korea said earlier in
the day that it would close its border with South Korea starting in December,
citing the South's continued "confrontational stance."
"No message has been received from the North," a Hyundai Asan official said. "We
expect, however, that our Kaesong tour program won't be suspended as the North
clearly states it will not ban South Korean tourists from visiting Kaesong."
Hyundai Asan, an affiliate of South Korean conglomerate Hyundai Group, has been
conducting the Kaesong tour program and other businesses in the North since the
mid 1990s.
The company started the tour program in December last year. It also began tours
to Mt. Geumgang, a resort on the North's eastern coast just north of the
inter-Korean border, in November 1998.
The Geumgang tour program has been halted since July 11 when a 53-year-old South
Korean tourist was shot dead in a military zone near the resort by a North Korean
soldier. The shooting dealt a serious blow to the company and further damaged
inter-Korean relations.
Despite the suspension of the program, 194 employees of Hyundai Asan and
subcontractors currently stay in the mountain resort.