North Korea demolishing South Korean

A view of the Diamond Country Club on North Korea's Mount Geumgang, Oct. 25, 2006. North Korea is continuing to unilaterally demolish a South Korea-built golf resort near the mountain, still unresponsive to Seoul's inquiries about the issue, according to a government official here Tuesday. Reuters-Yonhap

North Korea is continuing to unilaterally demolish a South Korea-built golf resort near Mount Geumgang on its east coast, still unresponsive to Seoul's inquiries about the issue, according to a government official here Tuesday.

"The dismantlement of the Haegumgang Hotel and demolition of the golf course have been constantly ongoing," the unification ministry official told reporters on the condition of anonymity. The official refused to elaborate, saying it was an intelligence-related matter.

NK News, a news outlet specializing in North Korea issues, reported earlier that the North appeared to have demolished facilities at the Ananti Golf and Spa Resort, April 9 and 10, citing satellite imagery provided by Planet Labs.

On Monday, the South's government asked the North via the inter-Korean liaison hotline to confirm the status of the hotel and the golf resort, but there has been no formal reply yet, the official said.

"We strongly urge North Korea to immediately stop its unilateral measures that infringe upon the property rights of our companies," the official said.

Pyongyang earlier announced it would remove facilities at Mount Geumgang, after its leader Kim Jong-un ordered the authorities in 2019 to tear down all "unpleasant-looking" facilities at the resort, once an icon of inter-Korean joint ventures.

The tour program to Mount Geumgang was launched in 1998, in which many South Koreans made cross-border trips to the scenic mountain. It came to a halt in 2008, when a South Korean tourist was fatally shot by a North Korean solider.

Meanwhile, North Korean state media reported that a forest fire broke out on the mountain over the weekend, damaging hundreds of hectares of forests and facilities. It was not immediately confirmed whether the fire was related to the demolition of the golf resort. (Yonhap)

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