South Korea reviewing options to improve ties with North, including tourist visits

SEOUL – South Korea is studying various plans to improve relations with North Korea, a spokesperson for South Korea’s Unification Ministry said on July 21, in response to a media report that Seoul is considering allowing individual tours to North Korea.

Mr Koo Byung-sam, a spokesperson for the ministry that handles inter-Korea affairs, refused to comment on a “particular issue”.

But he said he understood that individual tours were not in violation of international sanctions.

Tourism is one of a narrow range of cash sources for North Korea that are not targeted under United Nations sanctions over its nuclear and weapons programmes.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has pledged to improve strained relations with Pyongyang that have reached their worst level in years.

In a bid to ease tensions, Mr Lee suspended anti-North Korea loudspeaker broadcasts along the border and ordered a halt to leaflet campaigns criticising the North’s leaders by anti-Pyongyang activists.

The President has said he will discuss further plans with top security officials to resume dialogue with North Korea, which is technically at war with the South.

North Korea recently opened a beach resort in the city of Wonsan, a flagship project driven by leader Kim Jong Un to promote tourism.

But the tourist area is temporarily not accepting foreign visitors, according to a July 16 note by DPR Korea Tour, a website operated by North Korea’s National Tourism Administration.

North Korea first needs to open the area to the outside world, the Unification Ministry spokesperson said, when asked if South Koreans could travel to Wonsan.

South Korea once ran tours to North Korea’s Mount Kumgang area, but suspended them in 2008, when a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean soldier. REUTERS