By Lee Jin-joo and Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (Reuters) - Hundreds of South Korean tourists vacateda mountain resort in the North on Saturday, a day after a NorthKorean soldier shot and killed a 53-year-old woman vacationerwho wandered into a military zone in the area.
The incident comes after ties between the states,technically still at war, chilled in recent months and as SouthKorea's new president, who has advocated taking a tough linewith Pyongyang, repeated calls for dialogue.
"It is incomprehensible to shoot and kill a civiliantourist incapable of resistance during a time when it'spossible to make out (objects) with his naked eyes," PresidentLee was quoted as saying in an emergency ministerial meeting.
"Swift action should be taken to investigate the incident,and follow-up measures should also be drawn up," he said,calling for the North to cooperate in the investigation.
A North Korean spokesman put the blame on the South anddemanded an apology for what it called an incident oftrespassing in a restricted military area.
"The South side should be held responsible for theincident, make clear apology to the North side and takemeasures against the recurrence of (a) similar incident," theNorth's official KCNA news agency quoted the spokesman assaying.
After the shooting on Friday, South Korea suspended tourismto the Mount Kumgang resort, located a few kilometres north ofthe heavily fortified border on the east coast.
The South Korean affiliate of the Hyundai Group that runsthe resort has been shuttling tourists back to the South sinceFriday.
"There were 1,362 tourists in Mount Kumgang and we expect1,012 of them to return to the South today," said an officialwith resort operator Hyundai Asan.
Medical authorities said the victim, Park Wang-ja, was shotonce in the chest and once in her buttocks.
Park, the wife of a retired policeman, had left her hotelto watch the sunrise over the sea at the beach, fellowtravellers told local media.
She had apparently strayed past fenced-off resort groundsand was shot by a North Korean sentry in the pre-dawn hours ofFriday when she entered the military zone, South Koreangovernment officials said.
An eyewitness, also at the beach to see the sunrise, toldlocal media Park passed by him and after awhile he heard twogun shots with 10-second intervals and a scream.
"I heard a scream, which made me turn left, and I saw aperson collapse while three (North Korean) soldiers ran outfrom the mountain," Lee In-bok, a witness to the scene and alsotouring Mount Kumgang at the time, told YTN TV.
"Soldiers nudged the fallen person by their feet but Inever thought (that person) was a tourist," Lee added.
South Korea is conducting an investigation and looking intoNorth Korean claims a sentry shouted at Park to halt, and fireda warning shot before killing the housewife.
"When a serviceman spotted her and ordered her to stop, shedid not obey the order but began to run away," the North Koreanspokesman quoted by KCNA said. "The serviceman could not butopen fire at her."
The spokesman rejected the South's plan to send a team ofinvestigators, the KCNA dispatch said.
GENTLE AND KIND
"Park was very gentle and kind," Chae Young-soon, aneighbour, told local reporters.
The North Korean resort, opened in 1998, has been visitedby almost 2 million South Koreans. Park is the first SouthKorean tourist killed by a North Korean, a government officialsaid.
The resort has supplied hundreds of millions of dollars toimpoverished North Korea with tourists paying a fee to enterthe country and the communist state taking a cut on food,lodging and recreation expenses paid by tourists.
Before the incident was made public on Friday, PresidentLee Myung-bak, who took office in February, repeated a call tothe North to return to inter-Korean discussions.
Pyongyang has called Lee "a traitor to the nation" forcutting off what had been a free flow of aid and seeking to tieSeoul's largesse to progress the North makes in disarmament.
In April, North Korea said it was stopping dialogue withits wealthy neighbour, despite Lee's calls to tone down heatedrhetoric and get back to serious talks.
(Additional reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Valerie Leeand Jerry Norton)
