South and North Korea have agreed to establish a joint liaison office in the industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, raising the possibility of the resumption of bilateral economic cooperation. If the joint office opens, officials from the two sides will reside there to increase cross-border communication and exchanges, with brisker bilateral exchanges expected to accelerate North Korea-related projects. Attention is being paid to the Mt. Geumgang tour program, in particular, which is the symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation, as the two Koreas will hold Red Cross talks at the North Korean mountain on Friday, June 22, to discuss the reunions of families separated by the Korean War. Today, we’ll look back on the inter-Korean joint tour program, which started in 1998.

On November 18, 1998, the cruise ship “Hyundai Geumgang” left the port of Donghae in South Korea’s Gangwon Province on the east coast for Mt. Geumgang in the North, carrying 1,355 people, including tourists and crew members. Here is Kim Hong-in, executive director at the communications office of Hyundai Group, to explain.

The late Hyundai Group honorary chairman Chung Ju-yung visited North Korea in 1989 and signed an agreement with North Korea on some inter-Korean economic projects. But there was little progress for the following ten years until June 1998 when Chung drove a herd of cattle to North Korea. Around that time, the late Hyundai Asan Chairman Chung Mong-hun announced that the first South Korean cruise ship would set sail for Mt. Geumgang on September 25 after swift preparations. For that purpose, Seoul and Pyongyang were holding working-level talks to discuss how to ensure the convenience and safety of tourists. But the plan was postponed for a while due to political events, such as South Korea’s capture of a North Korean submarine off its east coast in June and North Korea’s test-firing of a Taepodong-1 missile in August. Chung Ju-yung and his son Chung Mong-hun visited North Korea to meet then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and signed an agreement again. After some ups and downs, the first cruise ship for Mt. Geumgang finally left the South Korean port on November 18.

As Mr. Kim explained, the Mt. Geumgang tour program was launched after ten years of waiting. With a dream of advancing into North Korea and Russia, Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-yung traveled to North Korea in 1989 to sign an agreement with the North on the Mt. Geumgang tour business and the joint development of Siberia. Following Chung’s cattle drive in 1998, South and North Korea began to push for the tour program in earnest. One month after the second batch of cattle was sent to North Korea, the Mt. Geumgang tour project was launched, with South Korean citizens setting foot on North Korean soil for the first time in half a century. Previously, South Koreans had only heard about the scenic mountain through songs, since they had been prohibited from crossing the barbed wire border fence into North Korea since the Korean War. But the South Korean tourists were amazed to see the mountain’s breathtaking scenery with their own eyes. Thanks to the tour program, ordinary citizens in South Korea were allowed to enter North Korea for tourism purposes. As the dream-like event became a reality, there were a flood of phone inquiries regarding the tour program, which was expanded further in 2003. Let’s hear from then-Hyundai Asan Chairman Chung Mong-hun.

For the first time in half a century since national division, we’ll cross the Military Demarcation Line and start making a field investigation for the historic overland tours to Mt. Geumgang.

On February 5, 2003, Chung crossed into North Korea using a road on the east coast, not through the truce village of Panmunjom, as the first South Korean civilian to do so. He was on a pilot tour using an overland route to the Mt. Geumgang resort. From September that year, overland tours to the mountain started. It took nearly nine hours for South Korean tourists to get to the mountain by ship, but the opening of a land route enabled them to visit the mountain more easily and quickly. Around 77-thousand tourists traveled to the North Korean mountain in 2003, but the following year, the figure jumped to 272-thousand. In 2008, visitors were allowed to cross the border in their own cars, and this helped draw even more tourists to the mountain. Mr. Kim explains more.

The Mt. Geumgang tour program lasted for ten years from November 1998 to July 2008. In the early stages, tourists visited the mountain by ship using a sea route. After 2003, they crossed the border by bus for an overland tour. About one-point-95 million South Korean people visited Mt. Geumgang during the ten-year period. They include tourists, separated family members who participated in the reunion program held at the mountain resort, government officials, politicians, scholars, students, workers and farmers.

South Korean visitors traveled to the mountain for various reasons. Many separated family members were reunited with their long-lost kin at the mountain, which was the venue for the inter-Korean family reunion program, while a number of scholars and students from South and North Korea held a variety of joint events. Clearly, the program not only provided tours but continued to develop as the symbol of inter-Korean exchanges. Unfortunately, however, an unexpected incident occurred in 2008. Following the death of a South Korean female tourist named Park Wang-ja by a North Korean solider on July 11, 2008, the South Korean government suspended the Mt. Geumgang tour program. Mr. Kim continues.

It was indeed a sad and shocking incident. As the operator of the tour program, we felt heavy responsibility for the death of a tourist and we were totally devastated by the suspension of the program. At the time, the South Korean government requested that North Korea offer a formal apology, find out exactly what happened and promise to prevent a reoccurrence in written form. Afterwards, relations between South and North Korea worsened gradually due to other political issues, with bilateral dialogue deadlocked. Although we hoped that the tour program would resume, we had to continue to endure the difficult situation.

Amid the prolonged suspension of the tour program, Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun visited North Korea in 2009 to meet then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and secured a guarantee of tourist safety. But the authorities of Seoul and Pyongyang never agreed to resume the tour business. Following North Korea’s second nuclear test in 2009, the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in 2010 and North Korea’s artillery attack on South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island in the same year, inter-Korean relations froze, with the Mt. Geumgang tour program suspended indefinitely. But now, on the occasion of this year’s inter-Korean summit, expectations are running high for the resumption of the tour project, which is called the “epitome of inter-Korean relations.” Here again is Mr. Kim.

Hyundai Group has developed and expanded inter-Korean economic cooperation projects in the belief that they will contribute to peace on the Korean Peninsula and Korea’s unification. We have experienced suffering and hardship, as our projects were halted, but we’ve never given up on our hope that they would restart some day. Previously, we carried out the Mt. Geumgang tour program, the Kaesong Industrial Park business and tours to Kaesong jointly with North Korea. Among them, we may have to prepare for the resumption of the tour project first, if a favorable environment for cross-border exchanges is created. I imagine we can resume the tour program after about three months of preparation, given the time needed to organize a task force team or others.