SEOUL, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Two-thirds of South Koreans positively saw efforts to resume tour to Mount Kumgang, a scenic mountain resort to the east of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), a poll showed Wednesday.
According to the National Unification Advisory Council survey, 66.8 percent of respondents positively assessed the efforts to actually restart the Mount Kumgang tour project through the resumption of individuals' tour and an in-kind payment.
Opposing the resumption was 30.2 percent. The results were based on a poll of 1,001 voters, having plus and minus 3.1 percentage points in margin of error with a 95 percent confidence level.
The tour by South Koreans to Mount Kumgang, launched in 1998, has been suspended since a South Korean female tourist was shot dead in 2008 by a DPRK soldier after allegedly venturing into off-limit areas.
Some claimed that South Korean individuals' tour to Mount Kumgang was not in violation of UN Security Council sanctions toward the DPRK, but others said "bulk cash" granted by the South Korean side to the DPRK may violate international sanctions.
To avoid the sanctions, some said costs for South Korean individuals' tour to the DPRK mountain resort can be paid in kind.
Meanwhile, 51.3 percent of respondents was optimistic about future negotiations between the DPRK and the United States to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and build permanent peace, while 42.3 percent was pessimistic over it.
Pyongyang and Washington resumed the working-level denuclearization negotiations in Stockholm in early October, after the second DPRK-U.S. summit ended without agreement in late February in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.
