Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jung-eun

Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jung-eun went to Pyongyang on a quasi-official mission Monday afternoon to win the release of a South Korean employee who has been held incommunicado in the North for 134 days.

At around 8:20 p.m., about three hours after she arrived in Pyongyang and relatively promptly by North Korean standards, the official KCNA news agency reported Hyun and her entourage "arrived in Pyongyang via Kaesong at the invitation of the Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee."

A senior government official in Seoul expressed hope that Hyun will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. He said Hyun had conducted behind-the-scenes talks with the North on behalf of the government over the release of the man identified only as Yoo (41), a Hyundai Asan staffer at the joint Kaesong Industrial Complex who is being investigated on sedition charges.

Before crossing the demarcation line, Hyun met reporters at the Dorasan immigration office in Paju, Gyeonggi Province and pledged to "try and win" Yoo's release. But when asked about possible talks over the resumption of Mt. Kumgang tours organized by Asan, which were suspended in July last year after the fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist there, she merely said, "We'll see."

Hyun crossed the border at about 2 p.m. After being welcomed by Ri Jong-hyok, the vice chairman of the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, the two headed for Pyongyang in a car.

Hyun had secretly met Ri at Mt. Kumgang on Aug. 4, while former U.S. President Bill Clinton was in Pyongyang, to discuss her official visit. Ri was a classmate of Kim Jong-il's at Kim Il Sung University.

Another government official said Hyun will "engage in talks on the government's behalf" over several issues including Yoo's release. "Since inter-Korean governmental talks have been suspended, it will also be convenient for the North to deliver a message to the South through Hyun instead of government officials," speculated Prof. Kim Yong-hyun of Dongguk University. "She can play a role as an informal special envoy to find a breakthrough" in deadlocked inter-Korean relations.

Many of the bones of contention between the Koreas such as Mt. Kumgang tours and the joint Kaesong Industrial Complex are linked to the Hyundai Group, which pioneered inter-Korean business projects under Hyun's late husband.