SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered the destruction of South Korean-made hotels, and other tourist facilities at the North's Diamond Mountain resort, apparently because Seoul won't defy international sanctions and resume South Korean tours at the site.
Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday that Kim had visited the resort and described its facilities as "hotchpotch with no national character at all." The report said Kim criticized North Korea's policies pushed under his late father as too dependent on the South.
Seoul suspended tours to Diamond Mountain in 2008 following a shooting death of a tourist. It can't restart inter-Korean economic activities without defying sanctions against Pyongyang, which have been strengthened since 2016 when the North began speeding up its nuclear development.
