Anchor: State-run media outlets in Pyongyang say North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered his officials to sit down with their South Korean counterparts to discuss the removal of South Korean-built tourist facilities at the North’s Mount Geumgang. The two Koreas had jointly operated a profitable tour program there until the shooting death of a South Korean tourist in 2008, and the program has been suspended since then.
Kim Bum-soo has more. 

Report: Located at scenic Mount Geumgang on North Korea's eastern coast, the resort was once a popular tourist destination for South Koreans until 2008.

The sole inter-Korean tour program, run by South Korea’s Hyundai Asan, has been suspended for over eleven years now since a tourist from the South was shot to death after entering an off-limits military area adjacent to the resort. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un now says unsightly South Korean facilities at the resort should be removed entirely.

[Sound bite: Korean Central TV (Oct. 23)] 
"[Chairman Kim said] that it is a mistaken notion that Geumgang tours cannot be revived unless inter-Korean relations are improved."

State-run media outlets in Pyongyang reported on Wednesday that Kim issued the instruction during a visit to tourist facilities on the mountain.

While criticizing "predecessors" for their foreign-dependent policies, Kim told his officials to discuss the removal with relevant South Korean authorities.

North Korea had been hopeful about resuming the suspended tours to Geumgang after last year's inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang, during which the two sides agreed to restart suspended inter-Korean projects as soon as conditions are met.

In his New Year's speech, Kim again made it apparent that he was willing to resume the tourism project along with the Gaeseong Industrial Complex.  

Pyongyang is unhappy with Seoul for failing to secure a relief from Washington-led international sanctions, which has prevented inter-Korean and other projects from rekindling the North Korean economy.

In the latest report, North Korean media cited Kim as saying that it is wrong to identify Mount Geumgang as a symbol of inter-Korean cooperation or common property of the two Koreas.

After Hyundai Asan’s tour program began in 1998, a total of around two million South Koreans visited the area, paying 50 dollars per person to North Korean authorities.  

As previous South Korean administrations were adamantly against restarting the tour program, North Korea in 2010 announced that it was freezing and confiscating related South Korean assets. After canceling Hyundai Asan's operational license in 2011, the North in 2013 launched its own foreign tourism program at the resort.

South Korean officials say they are working to determine North Korea's intentions behind the Geumgang instructions. 
Kim Bum-soo, KBS World Radio News.

[Photo : KBS News]