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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Search Search: Sign InNew User? Sign Up News Home - Help Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Secondary Navigation Australia China India Indonesia Japan Malaysia Philippines Thailand Vietnam Search Search: N.Korea restarts S.Korea tours in conciliatory gesture AFP - Tuesday, August 18 SEOUL (AFP) - - North Korea said Monday it would restart family reunions and a stalled tourism programme for South Koreans, in a rare conciliatory gesture after months of bitter hostility. ADVERTISEMENT Seoul cautiously welcomed the announcement, but said the two governments must hold talks before the trips -- a major earner for its sanctions-hit neighbour -- can resume. In a sign of continuing friction, the hardline communist North also warned of "a merciless and prompt annihilating strike" involving nuclear weapons if a US-South Korean military exercise starting Monday infringes its sovereignty. The tourism agreement was disclosed a day after a meeting in the North between leader Kim Jong-Il and Hyun Jung-Eun, chairwoman of the South's giant Hyundai Group, which operates joint tourism and business ventures. The North also agreed to lift limitations on border crossings by South Koreans which hampered operations at a Seoul-funded industrial estate. Hyun last week won the release of an employee detained since March in the North for allegedly criticising its regime. Analysts said that cash considerations aside, the North realises it must ease tensions with Seoul if it wants to improve ties with Washington. The North reportedly indicated it wants better US ties when former president Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang this month and held talks with Kim. Clinton won a pardon and the release of two jailed American journalists. Cross-border relations have soured since a conservative South Korean government took office in February 2008 and scrapped a "sunshine" aid and engagement policy. International tensions have risen following nuclear and missile tests by the North and a US-led drive to enforce tougher United Nations sanctions. The North, announcing an agreement with Hyundai, said tours to the scenic Mount Kumgang east coast resort and to Kaesong, a historic city near the west coast, would resume as soon as possible. It said it would in early October resume reunions of families separated since the 1950-1953 war. The Seoul government suspended Kumgang tours after North Korean soldiers in July 2008 shot dead a South Korean housewife who strayed into a military zone. The North had received about 410 million dollars since tours to Kumgang began in late 1998, excluding initial investments and payments. Pyongyang in December halted day trips to Kaesong and limited access to the industrial estate there, as ties worsened. Seoul's unification ministry said it "positively evaluates" the agreement between Pyongyang and Hyundai, but the two governments must hold talks to reach firm accords before tourist trips can resume. It repeated calls for a joint probe into the Kumgang shooting. North Korea has cut virtually all official contacts with the South. Recent calls by Seoul's leaders for dialogue are "nothing but a crafty and hypocritical rigmarole intended to evade their responsibility for having torpedoed the inter-Korean dialogue," ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Monday. Hyun said on her return Monday afternoon that Kim had promised there would never be a repetition of last year's shooting. She indicated that four crewmen on a South Korean fishing boat, detained on July 30 after an accidental border crossing, could also be freed. Kim Yong-Hyun, of Seoul's Dongguk University, said the North realised that cross-border hostility was a stumbling block to its desire to improve relations with the United States. "North Korea, under growing UN sanctions, also has economic reasons to jump-start the cash-generating business with South Korea," he said, predicting that the Seoul and Pyongyang governments would soon resume talks. "Inter-Korean relations are starting to get back on track but there will be no quick fix," he said. In a sign of the difficulties, the North's military command described the US-South Korean war games as a "grave threat" to peace and a prelude to an invasion. It vowed to respond to "even the slightest military provocation" infringing on its sovereignty with a "merciless and prompt annihilating strike at the aggressors with all offensive and defensive means including nuclear deterrent involved." Seoul's defence ministry dismissed the statement as "a routine denunciation." 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