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SEOUL: North Korea on Monday agreed to resume cross-border tours for South Koreans, ease border controls and allow more family reunions.
The agreement came a day after a meeting in Pyongyang between North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and Hyun Jung-Eun, chairwoman of the South's Hyundai Group, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
"All necessary facilities and security for tourism will be reliably provided according to the special measure taken by Kim Jong-Il, chairman of the National Defence Commission," it said, quoting what it called a joint agreement with the Hyundai group.
Hyun, whose group runs inter-Korean business projects, had travelled to the North last week and secured the release of an employee detained there since March for allegedly criticising Pyongyang's regime.
She returned home last Thursday, raising hopes of better relations after months of hostility.
The statement said South Korean tours to Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast, and to Kaesong, a historic city near the west coast, would soon resume.
It said the North would allow South Korean tourists more access to Mount Kumgang and new access to Mount Paekdu near its border with China.
The North said it decided to lift controls on border crossings by businessmen and tourists.
It also said it would allow more reunions of Korean families separated since the 1950-1953 war, and these would be held around Korean Thanksgiving Day, which falls on October 3 this year.
Seoul suspended tours to Kumgang after soldiers in July 2008 shot dead a South Korean housewife who strayed into a military zone.
Pyongyang halted day trips to Kaesong and limited South Korean businessmen's access to a Seoul-funded industrial estate there as ties worsened.
The suspensions have cost the impoverished communist North millions of dollars in lost revenue at a time when it is hit by intensified United Nations sanctions following its latest nuclear and missile tests.
South Korea's government would have to approve any resumption of the tours. - AFP/de
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