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.