By Hyunsu Yim
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea is dismantling a facility at its Mount Kumgang resort used for hosting meetings between families separated after the Korean War, South Korea said on Thursday, in the latest sign of strained tensions between the two Koreas.
The Unification Ministry, which handles affairs between the nations, urged Pyongyang to immediately stop the action at the site near the border on the North’s east coast.
The 12-storey building was built in 2008 with a budget of 55 billion won ($38 million) funded by South Korea and includes an event hall and over 200 guest rooms, according to the ministry.
The last tearful meeting between separated families was held at the venue in August 2018 before North Korea threatened to dismantle the resort the following year.
More than 130,000 South Koreans had registered to reunite with their separated families in the North as of December last year, with only 36,941 people still alive, government data showed.
The demolition of the facility is an “anti-humanitarian act that tramples on the wishes of separated families,” the ministry said, adding that it would consider legal measures over the action and a joint response with the international community.
The Mount Kumgang resort, located just beyond the demilitarised zone separating the two countries, was one of two major inter-Korean economic projects, along with the Kaesong industrial zone, seen as a symbol of rapprochement during decades of hostilities following the 1950-53 Korean War.
North Korea blew up a joint liaison office in Kaesong in 2020 after complaining about defectors sending propaganda leaflets into the reclusive North.
North Korea has been escalating its rhetoric against its southern neighbour in recent years, designating South Korea as a “hostile state”.
Pyongyang also blew up sections of inter-Korean roads and rail lines on its side of the heavily fortified border last year, which prompted South Korea’s military to fire warning shots at the time.
In 2023, Pyongyang scrapped a 2018 military accord designed to curb the risk of inadvertent clashes between two countries that remain technically at war, prompting the South to take a similar step.
Nonetheless, there have been signs that North Korea may be prepared to reopen to some foreign visitors for the first time in more than five years since the closure of its borders to tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Beijing-based Koryo Tours on Thursday said tours to North Korea were “officially back”, with some of its staff allowed to enter the Rason area in what it hoped would mark the relaunch of tourism.
($1 = 1,448.0000 won)
(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim; Editing by Ed Davies and Stephen Coates)
