N. Korean city draws 100,000 tourists from South despite shooting impasse

PAJU, South Korea, Oct. 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's western border city of Kaesong has drawn 100,000 South Korean visitors, the company operating a tour program to the city said Wednesday, despite a prolonged impasse over the shooting death of a South Korean tourist at another site in the North.

Hyundai Asan Corp., a unit of the South's Hyundai Group in charge of businesses
in North Korea, opened the tour to Kaesong in December last year. Everyday, about
370 people visit the North Korean city, about 70 kilometers north of the frontier
separating the two Koreas.
The high number of tourists to Kaesong comes as the two Koreas are still
bickering over responsibility in the July death of the South Korean tourist, who
was fatally shot dead by a North Korean soldier while touring the North's scenic
mountain resort of Geumgang.
Since then tours to Mt. Geumgang, which began in 1998, have been indefinitely
suspended.
In a ceremony to celebrate the 100,000th tourist, Hyundai Asan Chief Executive
Officer Cho Kun-shik expressed hope that the two Koreas could amicably resolve
the impasse over the shooting death.
"It's clear that we are in difficulties," Cho said at the ceremony, which was
held in the South's northern city of Paju, which serves as a gateway to the
Kaesong tour.
"But, I believe both the South and North will realize the importance of
inter-Korean cooperation projects, including the Geumgang tour, by enduring the
difficulties," Cho said.
Even before the shooting death, relations between the two Koreas had chilled
since the conservative, pro-U.S. government of President Lee Myung-bak was
inaugurated in February.
The North Korean city of Kaesong is also the site of an inter-Korean industrial
complex where some 23,000 North Koreans hired by some 70 South Korean factories
produce items such as textiles, kitchen wares and watches.