(3rd LD) Hyundai Group chief on way to Pyongyang over detained worker

(ATTN: UPDATES with ministry briefing, expert quote, S.K.-U.S. joint drill,
background)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Aug. 10 (Yonhap) -- The chief of Hyundai Group will visit Pyongyang later
Monday to discuss the release of a detained employee, Seoul officials said,
signaling a possible breakthrough in the case and in stalled inter-Korean
relations.

The rare trip by Hyun Jung-eun comes amid growing speculation that North Korea
may extend a friendly gesture toward Seoul in line with its recent pardoning of
two American journalists.
The Hyundai Group chairwoman "is scheduled to visit North Korea in the
afternoon," Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said in a press
briefing.
Hyun requested government approval for her three-day North Korea visit late
Sunday, and the ministry will grant it "soon," Chun said. A Hyundai spokesman,
Kim Ha-young, said Hyun is scheduled to cross the inter-Korean land border at
around 2 p.m.
The South Korean worker with Hyundai Asan Corp., the North Korea business arm of
Hyundai Group, was detained on March 30 at a joint industrial park in the North's
border town of Kaesong where he had been working for years.
North Korea accused the Hyundai employee, identified by his surname Yu, of
"slandering" the North's political system and trying to persuade a local woman to
defect to the South. In contrast to the American journalists who were allowed
phone calls to family and consular contact, North Korea has not granted any
outside access to Yu during his detention.
Hyun's trip comes days after former U.S. President Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang
and met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il who then granted a pardon for the
Americans. The female journalists were detained in mid-March for illegally
entering the country and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in June.
It remained undecided whether Hyun will be granted a meeting with the North
Korean leader, Hyundai sources said. The Hyundai chief met with Kim in 2005 and
2007 to reach accords on joint tourism ventures.
Experts agree Hyun's Pyongyang visit will likely lead to Yu's release and to
political progress in frozen inter-Korean relations, in which Hyundai Group is
deeply involved through its industrial ventures jointly run with North Korea.
Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea studies professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, said
North Korea has its own pressing need to mend ties with South Korea, a
precondition for improving relations with the U.S.
"For North Korea, its relationship with the South is not a central concern,
though for its major interest in progress with the U.S., North Korea has to
manage inter-Korean relations to some degree," Koh said.
This week appeared to be an opportune time for Yu's release as the Koreas have
typically used the Aug. 15 Independence Day as an occasion to patch up damaged
relations. On this date in 1945, Korea regained its sovereignty after 36-years of
Japanese colonial rule, following Japan's defeat in World War II. Liberation,
however, quickly led to national separation between the capitalist South and the
communist North backed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, respectively.
In a separate case, four South Korean fishermen are held in North Korea for
illegal entry. Their boat, the Yeonanho 800, was hauled into an eastern North
Korean port on July 30 after accidentally straying across the maritime
inter-Korean border in the East Sea.
Progress in inter-Korean relations is unlikely after this week as South Korea
begins its joint military exercise with the U.S., the Ulchi Freedom Guardian, on
Aug. 17. North Korea routinely denounces such drills as a war preparation.
Hours before Hyun's scheduled trip, Hyundai Asan chief Cho Kun-shik crossed the
inter-Korean border to the Kaesong park in another signal of Yu's imminent
release.
Hyundai is the major developer of the Kaesong park, which was opened in late 2004
marrying South Korean technology and capital with North Korean labor. More than
100 South Korean firms operate there with about 40,000 North Korean workers,
producing clothing, kitchenware, electronic equipment and other labor-intensive
goods. Yu's detention has chilled business sentiment there.
Hyun took over the group after her husband, Chung Mong-hun, committed suicide in
2003 amid an investigation into a cash-for-summit scandal.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)