Hyundai Group chief heading to North Korea to try to win release of detained SKorean worker

Hyundai chief to visit NKorea to discuss detainee

SEOUL, South Korea —The chairwoman of South Korea’s Hyundai Group conglomerate will travel to Pyongyang on Monday to try to win the release of a detained employee and to discuss restarting joint projects in North Korea.

Hyundai has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into joint projects in North Korea, including tours to a famed mountain resort and ancient sights in the historic city of Kaesong, and a joint industrial park where South Korean-run factories employ North Korean workers.

But North Korea halted the tours last year amid tensions with the South and since early March has had custody of a South Korean working at the Kaesong factory park for allegedly denouncing the regime’s political system. The North also seized a South Korean fishing boat and four fishermen late last month after the vessel accidentally strayed into northern waters.

Hyun Jung-eun, chairwoman of the Hyundai Group, is to cross the heavily fortified border on Monday afternoon for a three-day trip to Pyongyang, the group said in a statement.

Her trip comes on the heels of former President Bill Clinton’s journey to Pyongyang last week to secure the release of two American journalists, Euna Lee and Lisa Ling, sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for entering the country illegally in March.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pardoned the women last Tuesday and ordered their release.

Hyun is expected to focus on securing the worker’s release and persuading the North to resume tours to Diamond Mountain and Kaesong, both operated by Hyundai Asan, the group’s North Korea business arm, said Kim Ha-young, a Hyundai Asan spokesman.

“She’ll make efforts to bring the detained worker home,” Kim said. “The release of the detained worker is the most urgent issue.”

South Korean media, including the mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, said Hyun may meet Kim Jong Il during her trip, but Hyundai Asan said she doesn’t have any plans to meet the North Korean leader.

In Seoul, the Unification Ministry, which handles relations with the North, confirmed Hyun would make the trip. Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters the government has also made “all necessary efforts” to win his release.

Chun refused to say whether the Hyundai chief would carry a South Korean government message to the North. Hyundai Asan said Hyun did not have any message from the South Korean government.

President Lee Myung-bak said last Friday that his country’s is “doing everything it can” to win the release of its citizens detained in North Korea.

South Korean and Japanese officials said Clinton, during rare talks with Kim Jong Il, urged the North to free the South Koreans and to address decades-old abductions of Japanese citizens.

The two Koreas technically remain at war since their 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. After a period of warming ties, relations have deteriorated since the conservative Lee took office last year advocating a tougher policy on the North.