North Korea suspends tour project

SEOUL, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- North Korea has suspended tours from South Korea to the Mount Kumkang resort region -- a project it had called "a symbol of inter-Korean cooperation."

North Korea's Asia-Pacific Peace Committee told the International Herald Tribune it was halting the tours to honor the memory of Chung Mong Hun, who jumped to his death Monday from his 12th-story office at the Hyundai group headquarters in Seoul.

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Chung, in a suicide note, urged Hyundai Asan, the company he served as chairman, to continue the tours that his late father, Hyundai founder Chung Ju Yung, initiated five years ago.

The newspaper said Hyundai Asan last week resumed tours by road to Mount Kumkang, a cluster of peaks in southeastern North Korea, after beginning and then halting them early this year.

Hyundai Asan is coordinating the long-term development of tourist facilities around Mount Kumkang, several kilometers north of the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas.

North Korea claims Chung Mong Hun died as a result of an investigation by a special prosecutor into payoffs to North Korea. The Herald Tribune said Chung had been North Korea's closest business contact in South Korea.