Tourist shooting strains Korea reconciliation talks

The death of a South Korean tourist shot by a North Korean soldier while visiting the Communist nation overshadowed efforts by Seoul’s new president to reach out and rekindle stalled reconciliation talks.

South Korea expressed regret yesterday and suspended tours to North Korea’s Diamond Mountain resort over the shooting of the 53-year-old woman, who the North said had ventured into a restricted area while on a pre-dawn stroll at a beach.

The death came after a series of hostile North Korean moves against South Korean president Lee Myung-bak.

Since he entered office in February taking a tougher line on the North, North Korea has expelled South Korean officials from joint economic projects, labelled Mr Lee a traitor and warned of renewed fighting between the Koreas.

The shooting happened just hours before Mr Lee delivered a speech to the new South Korean legislature in which he extended a peace offering to the North by calling for talks to resume between the divided countries and offered humanitarian aid.

North Korea claimed the shooting victim, Park Wang-ja, crossed three-quarters of a mile into a fenced-off military area and fled when a soldier shouted at her to stop, according to the company running the tours, Hyundai Asan.

Ms Park continued to run after a warning shot was fired and was shot dead just 200 yards short of the fence, North Korea said.

South Korea suspended Diamond Mountain tours pending an investigation.

Mr Lee, a conservative, has taken a more critical stance towards North Korea than his predecessors and said he would not give it any special treatment. He has questioned deals reached at two summits between leaders of the countries and said they should be implemented only if they had economic merit.

But yesterday Mr Lee softened his tone and said he would respect the earlier summit agreements.

“Full dialogue between the two Koreas must resume,” he told the National Assembly. “The South Korean government is willing to engage in serious consultations on how to implement” the summit deals and other previous agreements between the two sides, he added.

Analysts said North Korea was unlikely to soon accept Mr Lee’s offer. There was no immediate response from the North, which usually takes its time to acknowledge outside developments.

North Korea will watch how Seoul deals with the shooting “as a yardstick to measure whether (Mr Lee’s) proposal is sincere”, said Kim Keun-sik, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies.

Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said the shooting would “further strain” relations because of the suspension of the tourism programme, a source of much-needed hard currency for the impoverished North, which takes a cut of tourist fees.