North Korea appears to have destroyed a massive monument symbolizing hopes for reunification with South Korea on the order of leader Kim Jong-un.

NK News, a U.S. media outlet that monitors the North, said on Tuesday that satellite imagery showed the arched monument in place in southern Pyongyang last Friday, only to be absent in an image from Tuesday, adding that it was unclear when or how it was dismantled.

The "Monument to the Three Charters for National Reunification," was completed in August 2001 after the 2000 inter-Korean summit talks and depicted two women leaning forward to jointly uphold an emblem of the entire Korean Peninsula without a demarcation.

Kim called the monument “eyesore” in a speech at the Supreme People's Assembly last Sunday, ordering the its complete destruction and the elimination of the concepts of reunification, reconciliation and fellow countrymen from the history of North Korea.

[Photo : YONHAP News]