Hyundai Asan in final day of tours to Kaesong

SEOUL, Nov. 28 (Yonhap) -- A group of South Korean tourists left for North
Korea's ancient border city of Kaesong, a South Korean tour operator said Friday,
in the final sightseeing tour to the North as Seoul was forced to suspend the
tour project amid deteriorating inter-Korean ties.

About a year after the first South Korean tourists began visiting historic sites
in Kaesong, about 70 kilometers northwest of Seoul, the tour program, the second
for South Koreans, has become the latest victim of escalating tensions between
the two Koreas.
The move comes as North Korea vowed Monday to halt the one-day tour to Kaesong
and strictly restrict cross-border passages from next week, in its first
retaliatory action against South Korea's hard-line policy toward Pyongyang.
Major tours to Mt. Geumgang -- the first North Korean destination opened to
tourists -- on the North's east coast have been halted since July when a South
Korean tourist was fatally shot dead by a North Korean soldier.
Friday's final tour means two cross-border tour projects to North Korea, launched
by two liberal predecessors of President Lee Myung-bak over the past decade, will
both be closed.
About 200 South Korean tourists were visiting a scenic waterfall, a historic
temple and other sites in Kaesong and returning to Seoul later in the day, said
an official at Hyundai Asan Corp., the North Korean business arm of South Korea's
Hyundai conglomerate.
Still, Hyundai Asan hoped the tour program to resume soon.
"While the Kaesong tour is halted owing to circumstances beyond control, we
believe the tour will resume soon," the Hyundai Asan official said.
On Saturday and Sunday, Hyundai Asan will withdraw most of its staff and vehicles
from Kaesong as North Korea demanded.
Relations between South and North Korea have deteriorated since conservative
President Lee took office in February with a hard-line policy on the North,
saying Pyongyang should live up to its pledge of abandoning its nuclear weapons
program.
In response, North Korea has accused the government of President Lee of ignoring
accords reached at inter-Korean summits in 2000 and 2007.
It remains uncertain whether North Korea's get-tough measures would affect the
last inter-Korean business project, a sprawling industrial zone in Kaesong where
88 South Korean firms employ about 35,000 North Korean workers and produce
kitchen wares, clothes and watches.
On Monday, however, North Korea stopped short of taking any action against the
Kaesong industrial complex, saying that it should not be a "scapegoat" of
inter-Korean tension.
The industrial complex, which pays North Korean workers US$70 monthly, is seen as
a major cash cow for the impoverished North.
(END)