S. Korean Reunion Group Urges Seoul To Boost Efforts To Restart Joint Projects In N. Korea

S. Korean Reunion Group Urges Seoul to Boost Efforts to Restart Joint Projects in N. Korea

The South Korean government should intensify efforts to reopen the industrial park in North Korea's Mount Kumgang as well as resume tours to the area, the head of the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation said on Wednesday

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th July, 2019) The South Korean government should intensify efforts to reopen the industrial park in North Korea's Mount Kumgang as well as resume tours to the area, the head of the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation said on Wednesday.

Seoul closed the industrial park in the North's border town of Kaesong in 2016 when the situation in the region escalated due to Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests. Tours to the scenic mountain were suspended in 2008 after a North Korean guard fatally shot a South Korean tourist.

"It is quite disappointing that it has been two years since the government was inaugurated ... but our diplomatic and security lines have failed to persuade the U.S. Congress and the White House to realize how important the Mount Kumgang tours and the Kaesong Industrial Complex are," Kim Hong-gul said during a forum in Seoul, as quoted by the Yonhap news agency.

The government should also rely more on the private sector and public diplomacy to push these issues forward, the council's chief added.

The situation on the Korean Peninsula has significantly improved since the beginning of last year with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledging to give up his nuclear aspirations after several rounds of talks with the South Korean and US presidents.

Seoul aspires to boost economic cooperation with its neighbor, including through these two symbolic cross-border projects, but its plans are hindered by US sanctions against North Korea, which Washington refuses to lift until the peninsula no longer has nuclear weapons.