Seoul: North Korea signed a contract with Hyundai Group today to open the country's highest and most revered mountain to South Korean tourists starting in May next year, the North's official media reported.

The deal follows up on an agreement that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun adopted at a rare summit in Pyongyang last month that called for a tour program via direct flights to Mount Paektu on the North s border with China.

Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun signed the contract in Pyongyang on Saturday with the North's Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, a ruling Workers Party organ that deals with South Korean affairs, according to North's official Korean Central News Agency.

Mount Paektu, the highest peak on the peninsula, holds mystical significance for all Koreans. The North claims Kim Jong Il was born there, though foreign scholars say the story is fiction invented by North Korean propagandists to enhance the leader's status. On Thursday, the North's leader met and had dinner with the Hyundai chief, KCNA said.

The contract also calls for the two sides to formally launch a separate tour program to historical sites in the North Korean border city of Kaesong starting next month. The Kaesong project was agreed upon in 2005, but has not been formally launched.

Hyundai Group, which has interests in elevator manufacturing, finance and logistics but doesn't include auto maker Hyundai Motor Co, is the North's main South Korean business partner that runs a nine-year-old tour project to the North's scenic Diamond Mountain.

Source : PTI