S. Korean workers to return from N.K. mountain resort

SEOUL, Aug. 23 (Yonhap) -- South Korean workers at a North Korean mountain resort are to return later in the day, an official said Tuesday, one day after the North ordered them to leave due to a dispute over South Korean assets at the site. "The 14 citizens on Mount Kumgang plan to return through the customs, immigration and quarantine office on the east coast at around 11:20 a.m.," the government official said on customary condition of anonymity, adding that they will be joined by two workers of Chinese nationality. North Korea on Monday ordered the South Koreans to leave within 72 hours, after vowing to legally dispose of all South Korean property at the scenic east coast resort. It also banned the transfer of all South Korean materials and property out of the resort. The move followed a series of talks between the sides to resolve an ongoing dispute over the assets worth some 484 billion won (US$447 million). Seoul suspended its tour programs to the resort in 2008 following the shooting death of a South Korean female tourist there. Pyongyang has since frozen or seized South Korean property at the resort and unilaterally terminated exclusive tourism rights for Hyundai Asan, a key South Korean tour operator there. It has also demanded South Korean firms choose between joining an international tour program for the resort, which is yet to be launched, and disposing of the assets through a lease, transfer or sale. Seoul has vowed to take all necessary measures, including legal and diplomatic steps, and warned that the North will be held accountable for all consequences resulting from its disposal of the assets. South Korea's public and private sectors have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in building hotels, restaurants and a golf course at the resort since 1998 when the North opened it for South Korean tourists. The inter-Korean project was hailed as a symbol of reconciliation and served as a major source of hard currency for the cash-strapped regime. The two Koreas remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.