SKorea, US still apart on how hard to press North

SEOUL, Oct 20 (Reuters) US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew out of South Korea today with no clear answers on how far Seoul will go to curb North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

The focus in South Korea in the wake of Rice's visit was whether Seoul should pull the plug on a mountain resort that one of its companies runs in the North, and whether it should interdict North Korean vessels suspected of transporting weapons.

''If we give the wrong signals now, the world will think we chose trade cooperation with North Korea over security cooperation with the international community,'' the mainstream JoongAng Ilbo said in an editorial.

In Seoul, Rice often noted it was Seoul's decision to join the interdiction programme formally known as the Proliferation Security Initiative, and suspend -- as long as Pyongyang remains defiant -- projects that aid the North.

But her deputy and the US envoy on North Korea, Christopher Hill, labelled the Mount Kumgang resort, run by an affiliate of the Hyundai Group, a cash cow for Pyongyang's leaders.

The affiliate, which also runs an industrial park in the North, has already sunk more than one billion dollars into those projects.

Tourists have paid 457 million dollars in admissions and management fees to North Korea to travel to the mountain resort, which has been visited by more than one million people since it was set up in 1998, the Unification Ministry said in a report.

Opposition lawmakers and conservative newspapers said that Seoul must abide by its promise to implement UN Security Council sanctions to punish Pyongyang for its October nine nuclear test, and the resort project should be on the chopping block.

South Korea, which stands in the firing line of the North's 1.2-million-man army, has long seen engagement as a way to keep peace. The government says the resort and industrial park are a hard-won channel that help pave the way to eventual unification.

''I believe the Kumgang project is big in its symbolism,'' South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told a news conference after meeting Rice yesterday.

''This government will make adjustments needed to the Kaesong industrial project and the Mount Kumgang tours so that they conform to the Security Council resolution and the calls from the international community,'' Ban said.

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