SEOUL — North Korea said Wednesday that its leader, Kim Jong Un, had ordered the demolition of South Korean hotels and other buildings in a resort complex that the two countries once operated together.
The resort town at Diamond Mountain, or Kumgang, just north of the inter-Korean border, opened in 1998, at a time of reduced tensions between the Koreas. Until it was closed during a dispute in 2008, it served as a major source of foreign currency for the cash-starved North, frequently hosting South Korean tour groups.
Kim said during a recent visit that the South Korean facilities were “shabby” and lacked “national character,” comparing them to “makeshift tents in a disaster-stricken area,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported Wednesday.
Kim has pressed South Korea to reopen the complex since last year, when he first met with the South’s president, Moon Jae In. But the South said it could only consider doing so as part of a broader agreement between the United States and North Korea to end the North’s nuclear weapons program.
Kim called for “building new modern service facilities our own way that go well with the natural scenery of Mount Kumgang.” He also criticized what he called “the mistaken policy of the predecessors” — a reference to his father, Kim Jong Il, the North’s previous dictator — for the decision to “rely on others” for the resort project, meaning the South.
On Wednesday, Lee Sang-min, a spokesman for the South’s Unification Ministry, said South Korea hoped to hold discussions with North Korea to defend its property rights at the resort.
Choe Sang Hun is a New York Times writer.
