By Kim Young-jin
North Korea unveiled a new raft of measures to attract foreign investment to the Mt. Geumgang resort Thursday after nullifying a South Korean firm’s exclusive rights to operate tours there.
The state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said a law had been passed paving the way for South Korean and other foreign investors to build a casino, golf course and night club at the resort near the border.
The moves would "turn the world famous Mount Kumgang into a special zone for international tours," the KCNA said, adding that investors would be given unrestricted access as well as visa-free trips to the site.
It was the North’s third eyebrow-raising move this week, after threatening to cut off all ties with the Lee administration, and then revealing an alleged secret meeting last month between officials from the two Koreas.
Once the symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation, Seoul halted the lucrative project after a South Korean tourist was shot there for apparently entering a restricted area. Cash-strapped Pyongyang has grown increasingly frustrated with Seoul for not resuming tour operations.
The North last year seized the property and kicked out most of the South Korean workers amid rising tension concerning the project.
Pyongyang’s incessant whining has thrown cold water on efforts to improve bilateral ties ahead of the resumption of multilateral dialogue. It has also thrown Seoul for a loop as the Lee administration attempts to stave off fallout from the revelation of a secret meeting and analysts attempt to decipher the North’s motives.
On Wednesday, the North Korean National Defense Commission claimed that government officials of the two Koreas held a secret meeting, where Seoul officials allegedly proposed dates for summits, even offering a cash bribe.
Analysts here said the reasoning behind Pyongyang’s statements remained murky, citing their proximity to the latest trip to China by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as well as its typical multipronged approach to diplomacy.
“We have to wait to see the real meaning of the North’s statements,” Shin Chang-hoon, researcher at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said. “At the moment it seems the North feels humiliated after Kim Jong-il’s trip.”
While it was hard to determine what set off the North’s frustration, Shin pointed to reports that a ceremony during Kim’s trip to mark the opening of a highway linking the two allies was suddenly cancelled, as a sign things may not have gone the way the Stalinist leader had hoped.
Others interpreted the moves as the latest in Pyongyang’s “rhetoric offensive” aimed at pressuring the South to change its position.
“It’s playing political games,” Bahng Tae-seop of the Samsung Economic Research Institute said. “On the surface, they pretend there are no negotiations with the South. But underneath, they always extend a hand to the outside. I don’t think there is a real stalemate.”
The North has long relied on external help to keep its destitute economy afloat. But such aid has shrunk in recent years amid rising tensions with Seoul and Washington. In the past few months, Pyongyang has increased its pleas for aid in the wake of brutal floods and a severe winter last year.
Bahng said the North could be raising the stakes before once again proposing talks around June 15, the day when North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and the late former President Kim Dae-jung met in a historic inter-Korean summit 11 years ago. The two leaders then agreed on ways to improve relations.
Bahng added that the regime is running out of time to improve its economy, ahead of 2012, the year it has pledged to emerge as a powerful country.
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