This Sept. 5, 2023, file photo shows buses parked at the tour center for the truce village of Panmunjom on the inter-Korean border. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — A tour program to the truce village of Panmunjom on the inter-Korean border will partially resume this week, the unification ministry said Tuesday.
The move came a day after Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho met with Gen. Paul LaCamera, chief of the United Nations Command (UNC), to discuss how to boost cooperation with the command, an enforcer of the Armistice Agreement that halted the 1950-53 Korean War.
The tour program for civilian visitors had been suspended since mid-July, after U.S. Army private Travis King crossed the border into the North during a tour to the Joint Security Area in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.
The ministry, which runs the tour for South Korean nationals, said a group of 20 visitors — including policy advisers and defectors from North Korea — will join a special tour of the truce village organized by the National Institute for Unification Education on Wednesday.
Special tours are typically organized by the government and differ from the general tours that ordinary visitors can sign up for online.
A ministry official said further discussions are needed for the resumption of the general tours for South Korean nationals.
(Yonhap)
