SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea on Thursday released a South Korean worker it had held since March accused of insulting the state's communist leaders, the South's Unification Ministry said, a move likely to ease tension between the two sides.
The release comes after former U.S. President Bill Clinton last week visited North Korea and won the freedom of two U.S. journalists also held since March for suspected illegal entry.
Hyundai Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun arrived in Pyongyang on Monday to seek the release of the worker identified by his family name, Yoo, and held at a joint factory park, and the resumption of tourism to the Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea.
Hyundai has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the resort and the factory park in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.
South Korea's main TV networks and other news outlets quoted government sources as saying Yoo had been handed over to South Korean authorities and would soon cross the border to the South.
The two Koreas are technically still at war after their 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Cho Meeyoung; Editing by Nick Macfie)
