NKorea refuses talks with South over flagship resort
Credit to Author: Agence France-Presse| Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 16:13:05 +0000
SEOUL: North Korea on Tuesday rejected Seoul’s request for talks on the fate of a flagship tour complex condemned by leader Kim Jong Un, dismissing meetings as “unnecessary,” the South said.
The abrupt rebuff is a stark illustration of the dire state of inter-Korean relations, which have plummeted since the collapse of a February summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Hanoi on the North’s nuclear program.
Pyongyang has repeatedly excoriated Seoul, saying it has “nothing to talk (about) any more” with the South.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has lambasted the Mount Kumgang resort, built by the South’s Hyundai Asan group on one of the peninsula’s most scenic mountains.
He described South Korean-built facilities there as “a hotchpotch with no national character at all” and “like makeshift tents in a disaster-stricken area or isolation wards”, ordering their removal, Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency reported last week.
The North sent a message Friday that Seoul should come and raze the buildings at an “agreed-upon date.”
In response, South Korea on Monday asked for working-level talks on the issue, but the North refused Tuesday and “insisted on an exchange of documents” instead, said Seoul’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations.
The Mount Kumgang complex once drew hundreds of thousands of Southern visitors and was a symbol of economic cooperation between the two Koreas.
But the tours came to an abrupt end in 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot dead a tourist from the south who strayed off an approved path, and Seoul suspended travel.
The reclusive North has long wanted to resume the lucrative visits, but they would now violate international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang over its nuclear and ballistic weapons programs.
North Korea has also pulled out of a December international women’s football tournament in the South, Seoul’s football authorities said Tuesday.
South has announced the North’s withdrawal from the East Asian Football Federation (EAFF) E-1 Football Championship due to be held in the South’s port city of Busan in December.
The North is a power in the women’s game, ranked ninth in the world, and has won the tournament — previously known as the EAFF Women’s East Asian Cup — the last three times it has been held.
“We have been notified by the EAFF that the North will not come to the South to play,” a representative of the South’s Korea Football Association said.
“We don’t know at this point why the North made that decision,” he said, adding that they were first informed in September but were only making it public Tuesday.
It comes after a historic World Cup qualifier — the first competitive match between the neighbor’s men’s teams ever hosted by Pyongyang — turned into a bizarre debacle earlier this month.
Pyongyang allowed no home or away fans or foreign media to attend, and no live broadcast, with FIFA president Gianni Infantino one of just a handful of spectators.
Infantino said he was “disappointed” after attending the match and “surprised” by the absence of fans and lack of media access.
Taiwan will take the North’s place in the four-team women’s tournament, which also features China and Japan as well as the host nation.
AFP