(4th LD) Hyundai Group chief visits Pyongyang over detained worker

(ATTN: UPDATES headline, throughout with Hyun's comment on departure, possibility of
Kim Jong-il meeting, N.K. word on S. Korean rocket launch)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Aug. 10 (Yonhap) -- The chief of Hyundai Group visited Pyongyang on Monday
to negotiate the release of a detained employee, signaling a possible
breakthrough in the case and in stalled inter-Korean relations.
The three-day 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.
"I will make my efforts for that," Hyun said before driving across the
inter-Korean land border, when asked by a reporter if her visit will bring the
employee home.
The 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 employed 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.
Hyundai said it was not yet decided whether Hyun will be granted a meeting with
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, but it did not rule out the possibility. She met
with the North Korean leader in 2005 and 2007 to reach accords on joint tourism
ventures.
"We have to see. We were not notified of such a schedule by North Korea in
advance," Kim Young-soo, a Hyundai Asan spokesman, said.
Hyun's trip comes days after former U.S. President Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang
and met with 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.
Experts agree Hyun's trip 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
Pyongyang has its own pressing need to mend ties with South Korea as a
precondition for improving relations with the U.S.
"For North Korea, its relationship with the South is not a central concern. But
for its major interest in progress with the U.S., North Korea has to manage
inter-Korean relations to some degree," Koh said.
In an apparent message to the U.S. on Monday, North Korea's foreign ministry
warned it will "closely watch" how regional powers react to South Korea's
upcoming launch of a space rocket, saying it was unfairly punished for its own.
Pyongyang's rocket launch in April, widely condemned as a disguised missile test,
prompted a U.N. Security Council resolution that tightened financial sanctions
against the country.
"It's the language used to emphasize that the sanctions should be eased and
relations improved," Cho Myung-chul, a North Korean defector and analyst with the
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy in Seoul, said.
This week appeared to be an opportune time for a breakthrough 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.
Watchers expect President Lee Myung-bak to reciprocate on the anniversary by
announcing reconciliatory offers, such as resuming massive government aid
suspended last year.
North Korea is also holding four South Korean fishermen whose boat strayed across
the maritime border in the East Sea on July 30.
Going beyond this week, inter-Korean progress is unlikely 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 war preparation.
Hyundai sources said Pyongyang invited Hyun after she requested it last week.
Earlier Monday, Hyundai Asan chief Cho Kun-shik departed for the Kaesong park in
another signal of Yu's possible 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 as the group chief after her husband, Chung Mong-hun, committed
suicide in 2003 amid an investigation into a cash-for-summit scandal.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)