Chung Mong-hun, the tycoon who jumped to his death from an office window, was the face of South Korean business in North Korea: He traveled to North Korea often, even posing for photographs with its highest leader, Kim Jong Il.

A relative of Chung Mong-hun, the top executive of South Korea's Hyundai conglomerate, offers a silent prayer in Seoul Aug. 4, 2003. Chung, who was embroiled in a scandal over a historic 2000 summit between the two Koreas, committed suicide, jumping from his 12th-story office in the Hyundai headquarters Monday, police and company officials said.[AP]

But Chung, 54, was more than an entrepreneur angling for a foothold in a risky, untapped market. He was an ambassador for reconciliation on the divided Korean Peninsula and played a key role in joint economic projects between the North and South that now face uncertainty, at least in the short term.

North Korea expressed condolences over the death Tuesday and said it will suspend a joint tourism project with South Korea, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"Due to the death of Chung Mong-hun ... we will temporarily suspend Diamond Mountain tourism project" as a show of respect, the North Korean committee said. Hyundai-Asan manages a financially troubled tourism project at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea that began in 1998.

The committee also said Chung's death was not a suicide, but a murder by South Korean politicians who oppose inter-Korean reconciliation, and that joint projects "face danger that nobody can predict."

However, it is doubtful that North Korea would turn its back on economic contacts with South Korea, one of the its few sources of revenue.

Chung jumped from the 12th story of the Hyundai headquarters building in central Seoul, police said. A janitor found his body in shrubbery near a parking lot, first mistaking him for a slumbering drunkard.

The economic projects are central to South Korea's efforts to ease tension with North Korea amid a standoff over its suspected development of nuclear weapons. North Korea said Monday that U.S.-proposed multilateral talks on the dispute would begin "soon" in Beijing, and South Korea said they would start early next month.

In the long run, however, the economic viability of South Korean ventures in the North, as well as the ups and downs of political tension along the Cold War's last frontier, are likely to play bigger roles in determining the outcome of the projects. Chung's company, Hyundai-Asan, had been losing heavily on investments in North Korea, and he was embroiled in a scandal over the historic 2000 summit between the two Koreas.

The South Korean government insisted the death of Chung, a top executive of the Hyundai conglomerate, would not affect projects such as construction of an industrial park in the North, as well as cruise boat tours to a scenic mountain on its east coast.

"The projects led by Hyundai-Asan, such as Kaesong Industrial Complex and Diamond Mountain tourism project, are pushed not at an individual level but systematically," Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun told KBS radio in Seoul.

"So I don't think his death will have much impact on inter-Korean projects," he said. The government promised full support for the projects.

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert in Seoul, also said Chung's death will not have much impact because the fundamentals of inter-Korean economic plans already have been set.

There could, however, be a readjustment period. North Koreans had developed a personal rapport with Chung, who took over projects in the North after the death in 2001 of his father and Hyundai founder, Chung Ju-yung. Born to a peasant family in North Korea, the senior Chung had a passion for investing there.

At a June 30 groundbreaking ceremony for the industrial park in Kaesong, North Korean officials treated the younger Chung with deference, and they are accustomed to dealing with Hyundai, a major source of their revenue.

In notes he hurriedly scribbled to his family and Kim Yoon-kyu, his deputy, Chung urged continuing his North Korean projects and asked that his ashes be scattered over Diamond Mountain. But it's unclear who will take over the company, and whether the new leadership will be as keen to pursue projects that show little sign of making money.

Chung's links to North Korea landed him in trouble that some speculate may have pushed him to take his life. He was on trial on charges stemming from allegations that Hyundai-Asan helped former President Kim Dae-jung's government secretly pay North Korea $100 million to agree to the 2000 summit.

Chung was indicted on charges of doctoring company books to hide the money transfers. If convicted, he could have faced up to three years in prison.

Chung was also accused of embezzling $12.5 million in company funds to bribe government officials and politicians to win political and financial support for his companies and North Korean projects.

The Hyundai executive's death was unlikely to trigger major developments in the scandal. An independent counsel had agreed not to consider whether former President Kim was culpable. However, three of Kim's former top aides were arrested and indicted on malfeasance and other charges.

Chosun Ilbo, a conservative newspaper often critical of the government, said in an editorial that Hyundai's operations in North Korea were guided by politics, rather than business savvy. It cited the influence of the Kim government's "sunshine" policy of engaging the North.

"The North Korea business from the start foreshadowed damage to related companies as it mingled politics with business," the newspaper said. "As a result, it led to Monday's tragedy."

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