North Korea reopens to South

North Korea said on Monday it would reopen its border with the South, ending a self-imposed 9-month blockade on a vital source of cash for its leaders as their ravaged economy is squeezed by tightening UN sanctions. It is the latest step by the hermit North to end near complete isolation by the outside world over its months of military grandstanding, including a second nuclear test in May.
-- North Korea says to resume tourism, family reunions
-- Repeats warning against US, South Korean military drills
-- China nuclear envoy may head to North
But in a reminder of tensions on the peninsula, North Korea's KCNA news agency followed the report on the border deal with one warning of a "merciless and prompt annihilating strike", including nuclear weapons, if US and South Korean military drills that started on Monday infringe on its sovereignty.
The agreement to ease restrictions on the border, effectively closed since last December, and restart lucrative tourism to the North came during four-hour talks between the reclusive state's ruler Kim Jong-il and the head of the South Korean Hyundai Group.
"(Kim Jong-il) said to tell him all that I wanted, so I did," Hyundai's Hyun Jeong-eun told reporters on arrival back in the South after her trip to Pyongyang, at the North's invitation, to seek the release of a worker detained for nearly five months for insulting the North Korean leadership.
Hyun, who described the meeting over lunch on Sunday as convivial, said Kim also agreed to talks over the fate of four South Korean fisherman detained late last month after straying into North Korean waters. The Hyundai Group runs tourism to the North and operates the Kaesong industrial park just across the border and an important source of income for Pyongyang's leadership.
Hyun's visit followed hot on the heels of one earlier in the month by former US President Bill Clinton, who also met Kim, to win the release of two jailed American journalists. Wu Dawei, the top nuclear envoy from China, the closest North can claim as a major ally, is planning to go to Pyongyang later on Monday in a bid to restart the six-country talks on ending North Korea's atomic ambitions, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a diplomatic source as saying.
Under the latest agreement, land passage across their heavily armed border will be resumed, allowing normal traffic to the Kaesong factory park. They agreed that officials from both sides would start talks on resuming tourism to the scenic Mount Kumgang resort, halted a year ago after a North Korean soldier shot dead a tourist from the South who had wandered into a military area. Pyongyang also agreed to let Hyundai launch tours to Mt Paektu, a sacred peak in Korea, and for the resumption in October of reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.