SEOUL, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- The governor of a eastern South Korean province, bordering the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), said Monday that he had sent a letter to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence asking help for the resumption of the suspended inter-Korean tour program in Mount Kumgang.
Gangwon Province Governor Choi Moon-soon told a press conference in Seoul that the letter was delivered to the White House during his recent trip to Washington for restarting the halted Mount Kumgang tour project.
Through the letter, Choi also asked Pence to help South Koreans tour the DRRK's Wonsan tourist zone, expected to open next year, if the Mount Kumgang tour is hard to be resumed in the near future because of the international sanctions, the governor noted.
The U.S. vice president attended the opening ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics that was held last February in the South Korean eastern county of PyeongChang in Gangwon province.
The DPRK sent its athletes and cheering squad to the South Korea-hosted winter sports event, becoming a starting point to the inter-Korean summits and the first-ever DPRK-U.S. summit last year.
The press conference was held to urge normalization of the Mount Kumgang tour. Among the participants were businessmen and civic group activists as well as the Gangwon province governor.
They said in a statement that the Gangwon province has suffered a loss of about 400 billion won (344 million U.S. dollars) since the tour program was halted, while the loss by relevant companies reached 1.5 trillion won (1.3 billion U.S. dollars).
The statement noted that the inter-Korean tour program was a matter of livelihood for people in the province and also a matter of regional peace and stability.
The tour by South Koreans to Mount Kumgang, launched in 1998, has been suspended since a South Korean female tourist was shot dead in 2008 by a DPRK solider after allegedly venturing into off-limit areas.
Top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un said last month that he would welcome the South Korean compatriots at any time if they want to come to Mount Kumgang.
Kim ordered the removal of South Korea-built "shabby" facilities in Mount Kumgang in an agreement with the relevant unit of the South Koran side.
Seoul proposed holding working-level talks with Pyongyang about issues on the Mount Kumgang project, but the DPRK said it preferred the exchange of letters, rather than face-to-face talks.
The resumed tour by South Koreans to the DPRK's mountain resort could be subject to the international sanctions if the travel costs are paid to the DPRK side in "bulk cash."
