March 29, 2024
Analysis

Why North Korea wants to talk about a tourist mountain

Money, no exposure to Southern influence and little work make Mt. Kumgang an ideal platform for cooperation

So, there are good reasons to believe that relations between two Koreas have started to improve – or, to be more correct and cynical, good reasons to believe that decision makers in Pyongyang have decided to move from a pseudo-bellicose stage to a negotiation stage.

One of the issues on the table is the revival of the Kumgangsan Tourist Project (KTP), or Mount Kumgang. Once a flagship of North-South cooperation, the tourism zone has been frozen since 2008 and, from the North Korean point of view, is an ideal model of what form interaction with Seoul could take.

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