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SEOUL: North Korea's fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist was not premeditated and the communist state is trying to convey this message to Seoul, a newspaper report said Monday.
The soldier who shot housewife Park Wang-Ja at the Mount Kumgang resort on July 11 was a newly enlisted 17-year-old woman, Dong-A Ilbo newspaper quoted a Seoul intelligence official as saying.
The killing of Park, who strayed into a restricted military zone, has further soured relations. The South has halted the Kumgang tours, which earn the impoverished North tens of millions of dollars a year.
The North has expressed regret at the death but blames the South and refuses to let it send an official investigation team.
The official was quoting what he called an intelligence report which has yet to be finally confirmed.
Some Seoul media have speculated that the killing was pre-planned since previous trespassers were merely cautioned and released. It came hours before President Lee Myung-Bak appealed for better relations - an offer rebuffed by the North.
"North Korea seems internally at a loss how to handle this accidental incident," the official was quoted by Dong-A as saying.
It was trying to convey the message that the shooting was unplanned via "inter-Korean channels" in China, the official said. Both countries have embassies in Beijing.
The North had previously cut official ties to the South in protest at Lee's earlier tougher line on cross-border relations.
The North is also checking whether South Korean civic groups will be able to take part in a tour of Mount Paekdu and of Pyongyang's Arirang Festival in July and August, the paper quoted the official as saying.
The South's unification ministry, which handles cross-border ties, could not confirm the newspaper report.
"That's something that our government joint investigation team should verify through on-site investigations," a spokesman told AFP.
The National Intelligence Service was not available for comment.
The foreign ministry has said Seoul will raise the killing at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Singapore this week.
- AFP/yb
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