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Kim Jong-un orders South Korean-built Mount Kumgang tourist resort to be torn down
- The Mount Kumgang tourist complex was built by South Korean company Hyundai Asan in the North on one of the peninsula’s most scenic mountains
- But tours came to an abrupt end in 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot dead a tourist who strayed off the approved path and Seoul suspended travel
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has condemned a flagship tourist development with the South as an eyesore and ordered its demolition, state media reported on Wednesday, in a stark illustration of dire relations between Pyongyang and Seoul.
The Mount Kumgang tourist complex was built by South Korean company Hyundai Asan in the North on one of the peninsula’s most scenic mountains, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors from the South.
But tours came to an abrupt end in 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot dead a Southern tourist who strayed off the approved path and Seoul suspended travel.
Pyongyang had long wanted to resume the lucrative visits, but the tours would now violate international sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic programmes.
Kim visited the site and lambasted the “shabby” buildings as “just a hodgepodge with no national character at all”, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported, adding “they were built like makeshift tents in a disaster-stricken area or isolation wards” and “very backward in terms of architecture”.
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