By Lee Jin-joo and Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea said on Sunday it was"unimaginable" for a North Korean soldier to shoot dead aunarmed housewife vacationing at a resort in the North, callingon it to come clean over the incident damaging already strainedties.
The woman, 53, was gunned down in the predawn hours ofFriday when she apparently wandered into a North Koreanmilitary area near the Mount Kumgang resort, located on theeast coast and just a few kilometres north of the heavilyfortified border.
"If a strict investigation is not conducted over thistragic incident, that would be like throwing cold water onexpectations for developments in inter-Korean relations throughSouth-North talks," the Unification Ministry said in astatement.
"The act was wrong by any measure, unimaginable and shouldnot have taken place at all."
South Korea suspended tourism after the shooting andofficials said that all of the about 1,300 tourists at theresort at the time of the incident would have left by Sunday.
A North Korean spokesman put the blame on the South anddemanded an apology.
"The South side should be held responsible for theincident," the North's official KCNA news agency on Saturdayquoted the spokesman as saying.
"The South Korean tourist intruded deep into the area underthe military control of the North side all alone at dawn, goingbeyond the clearly marked boundary fence, even (her) shoes gotwet," the spokesman said.
Park, the wife of a retired policeman, had left her hotelto watch the sunrise over the sea at the beach, fellowtravellers told local media. A funeral was planned for Sunday.
A South Korean tourist also at the beach at the time of theshooting told local media Park passed by him and after awhilehe heard two gun shots within a 10-second interval.
"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, told South Korean TV network
YTN.
"Soldiers nudged the fallen person by their feet but Inever thought (that person) was a tourist," Lee added.
Park had been shot in the chest and rear.
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. It was hailed as a milestone in reconciliation betweenthe two states still technically at war.
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, extended an olivebranch to his prickly neighbour and repeated a call to theNorth 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.
(Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by David Fox)
