Prospects for improved relations between the two Koreas were in jeopardy yesterday after a South Korean housewife was shot dead by a North Korean soldier during a holiday tour.

The killing, in the Mount Kumgang holiday resort close to the border, came as negotiators met to discuss North Korea’s nuclear programme, and after the South Korean President, Lee Myung Bak, offered talks to reduce tension. Details were still emerging, but the incident threatens to stoke hostile feelings towards the North among South Koreans.

The dead tourist was named as Park Wang Ja, 53, a wife and mother from Seoul, who had gone out for a solitary dawn walk. She somehow found herself on the wrong side of wire barriers in a restricted North Korean zone, according to Hyundai Asan, the South Korean company that operates tours to Mount Kumgang.

The North Korean authorities informed the company that she ignored warnings to halt, and when she ran away a soldier fired on her. She suffered injuries to the chest and legs and died at about 5am. Her body was handed over later that morning and transported to the nearby South Korean city of Seokcho.

The Seoul Government described the incident as “deeply regrettable” and announced the suspension of tours to Mount Kumgang until the outcome of a joint investigation into Mrs Park’s death. The resort opened to tourists ten years ago, and since then 1.9 million people have visited, most of them South Koreans eager for a glimpse of one of the most isolated and authoritarian states on earth.

The bigger question is how it will affect the recent progress towards détente with North Korea, which provoked international anxiety when it conducted an underground nuclear weapons test in 2006. Efforts to negotiate the abandonment of the nuclear programme in six nation talks hosted by China have repeatedly become bogged down. Last month, however, there was a breakthrough when Pyongyang finally released a declaration outlining some details of its nuclear programme.

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