By Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (Reuters) - The ruling party of South Korea'spresident said on Monday it wanted dialogue with North Koreaover the shooting death of a South Korean tourist at a resortin the North to prevent already frayed ties from being furtherdamaged.
North Korea rebuffed an olive branch extended last week byPresident Lee Myung-bak for talks, calling it "an intolerableinsult," while analysts said the North is likely to stonewallattempts at dialogue to damage Lee, whose popularity has sunkdue to policy blunders.
"I believe it is high time for the National Assembly topioneer and spark dialogue," Hong Joon-pyo, a senior politicianwith the conservative Grand National Party, said in an addressto parliament.
Hong pressed the North to cooperate in the investigation ofthe death of the woman, 53, who was gunned down by a NorthKorean soldier in the predawn hours of last Friday when sheapparently wandered into a military area near the Mount Kumgangresort.
North Korea has blamed the South for the killing, refusedto cooperate in a joint investigation and demanded an apology,which led to a furious reply from South Korea at the weekend.
"The act was wrong by any measure, unimaginable and shouldnot have taken place at all," the Unification Ministry said.
South Korea suspended tours last week to Kumgang, which washailed as a milestone in reconciliation between the statestechnically still at war when it opened in 1998. Nearly twomillion South Koreans have visited the resort located on theeast coast just a few kilometres north of the heavily fortifiedborder.
South Korea's largest daily, the Chosun Ilbo, said onMonday the killing may lead to the complete suspension of SouthKorean tourism to North Korea, which also results in thedestitute North pocketing millions of dollars a year in feespaid by visitors.
"Inter-Korean ties are going to go down, definitely. Butwhat happens thereafter depends largely on how this newgovernment in Seoul follows through," said Lee Dong-bok, asenior associate in Seoul with the CSIS think tank.
"North Korea could have handled it in a way that would havebrought a quick and rapid closing. Instead, North Korea haschosen to take advantage of it in their own way to mountpressure on the Lee Myung-bak government," Lee said.
President Lee has pledged massive assistance for hisimpoverished neighbour, but unlike his liberal predecessors whodispensed aid freely, has said Seoul's largesse would be tiedto progress North Korea makes in nuclear disarmament.
North Korea, angered by that approach, branded Lee a"traitor to the nation" and said in April it was cutting offdialogue.
Ko Yu-hwan, a Dongguk University professor of North Koreastudies, said cooler heads would eventually prevail because ofeconomic and political interests shared by the states.
"If the confrontation reaches its peak, both sides willrealise that they cannot go on like that," Ko said.
The shooting incident came as North Korea was meeting withfive regional powers to discuss a disarmament-for-aid deal.
Analysts see the shooting issue as confined to the twoKoreas for now and do not expect it to spill over to theinternational nuclear disarmament talks.
Meanwhile, the family of the shooting victim, Park Wang-ja,called on the North to come clean on the killing.
"I want all suspicions to be answered," her husband, BangYeong-min, a retired policeman, told the national dailyJoongAng Ilbo. "I want the truth so that my wife can rest inpeace.
(Additional reporting by Kim Junghyun; Editing by JonathanHopfner and David Fox)