Mount Kumgang resort is popular with South Korean tourists [AFP]

The incident occurred on Friday, at Mount Kumgang, on the east coast of North Korea, a unification ministry official said.

South Korean media reports say the woman wandered into a restricted military area.

Yonhap news agency, quoting unidentified officials, said the 53-year-old woman was shot while taking an early morning stroll near a golf course.

The woman, Park Wang-Ja, had strayed into an off-limits military zone and was shot in the chest and leg, Yonhap news agency said.

The body was transferred to a hospital at the eastern South Korean city of Sokcho near the border.

More than one million South Koreans have visited Mount Kumgang, just inside the North's border.

Tense relations

Relations have stalled since Lee Myung-bak, South Korea's new conservative president, took office six months ago with a tougher policy on the North.

However, just before the shooting on Friday, Myung-Bak proposed new negotiations between the Koreas and said he would respect earlier agreements from North-South summits, a softening of his earlier stance.

Meanwhile a second day of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programme is underway in Beijing.

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