Seoul hails Hyundai's relations with North

Seoul hails Hyundai's relations with North

SEOUL (AFP): South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung hailed on
Monday the planned launch of the first ever tourism link with
North Korea, but urged caution in hoping for an early thaw in
ties with the Stalinist North.

Seoul's giant Hyundai Group last week won the crucial personal
blessing of North Korea's reclusive leader, Kim Jong-Il, for the
launch of a luxury cruise boat service to the starving communist
state later this month.

The scheme came in a series of business deals worth billions
of dollars approved by Pyongyang on Friday. Starving Pyongyang
stands to make millions of dollars in much-needed foreign
exchange.

Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-Yung on Monday briefed Kim on
the visit, and on his historic meeting with Kim, as South Koreans
began booking for tours to the North amid praise of Chung's trip
as a milestone in inter-Korean ties.

"Economic exchanges are very good for both sides, and in
improving relations between South and North Korea," Kim told
Chung.

The visit was made possible by President Kim's unprecedented
"Sunshine Policy" of engaging North Korea through economic and
cultural exchanges rather than antagonizing the pariah nation.

But, Kim warned, the results of Chung's historic meeting with
the "Great Leader," Kim Jong-Il's first with an outsider since
being confirmed as effective head of state in September, should
not be "overplayed" by the media.

The president said it was best to gradually implement the
projects in a bid to slowly build up the foundation for better
ties between the rival Koreas.

Chung told the president that Kim Jong-Il had personally
agreed to the first ever tourism scheme linking South and North
Korea, still technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Hyundai agreed to pay North Korea US$906 million for the
exclusive rights to develop a major tourist resort on the slopes
of the picturesque Mount Kumgang.

Hyundai meanwhile on Monday began accepting applications for
places on its maiden cruise, with the first ship scheduled to
sail towards the Mount Kumgan area on Nov. 18.

A spokesman said the first ferry would carry 1,200 mainly
elderly South Koreans who were born in the North before the
division of the two countries.

Kim said great expectations had been raised here by the
approval by Pyongyang of the Kumgang scheme.

North Korea watchers here said Chung's historic meeting with
Kim Jong-Il could become a "turning point" in relations between
the two Koreas. But, they also warned, it was too early to say
this would break the ice.

A Seoul-based scholar issued a similar warning. "It's far too
early to extrapolate the success of this visit into a political
or military context," the scholar said.