North Korea is demolishing a golf course owned by South Korea at a mountain resort, as the former destroys the latter's assets in the location where the rivals conducted a joint tourism program years ago.

South Korean Officials said Tuesday in Seoul that North Korea's demolition of South Korean-built facilities at its Diamond Mountain resort comes as ties between the countries stay strained over the North's recent string of high-profile missile tests.

Seoul's Unification Ministry told the Associated Press that it has confirmed North Korea is demolishing the golf resort in addition to a South Korean-owned hotel in the area, as reported by ABC News.

Last Friday, the ministry said North Korea was dismantling the Haegumgang Hotel, a floating hotel docked at a coastal area in the resort.

South Korea is urging North Korea to stop destroying the latter's facilities. It demanded that North Korea return to the negotiating table to resolve the situation.

A Joint Project Between the Rival Nations 

During an earlier era of inter-Korean truce, the two Koreas collaborated on a touring initiative at the resort for roughly ten years.

The trips drew an estimated 2 million South Korean visitors and provided the impoverished North with an unusual source of foreign revenue.

However, in 2008, South Korea halted the project after one of its visitors was tragically shot by a North Korean soldier.

Following an improvement in bilateral ties in 2018, the two Koreas attempted to revive stalled cooperative initiatives, such as mountain trips. However, Seoul was unable to do so without breaking US-led sanctions that prevented the tours from resuming.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered officials to demolish South Korean-owned assets in the resort in 2019, but the operation was postponed due to COVID-19 concerns.

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South Korea Demands To Stop Demolition Activities

Seoul asked Pyongyang through the inter-Korean liaison hotline on Monday to confirm the status of the hotel and the golf resort, but there has been no formal reply as of the present writing.

On the condition of anonymity, the official disclosed that South Korea "strongly" urged its rival to immediately cease its "unilateral measures that infringe upon the property rights" of its companies, as reported by Yonhap News Agency. 

South Korea owns various lodging facilities in the resort, including spas, a culture center, karaoke rooms, and a facility used for reunions of Korean families separated by a conflict between the two Koreas, in addition to the golf resort and floating hotel. It was uncertain what would happen to the facilities.

Meanwhile, a fire in the Diamond Mountain area over the weekend burned unidentified facilities and hundreds of hectares of forest, according to state media in the North. The fire was put out on Sunday, according to the report by The Independent.

A forest fire ripped through North Korea's Mount Kumgang region:

-Coincides with the removal of a ROK-owned golf resort
-Unclear if the two events are connected
-State media is possibly using the fire as indirect justification for the hotel's removalhttps://t.co/Cli2FtpV5o

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) April 12, 2022

It was unclear whether the incident was related to the resort's demolition of South Korean infrastructure. The South Korean Unification Ministry said it was investigating whether the incident had caused any harm to the resort's facilities.  

On Twitter, NK News reported that "State media is possibly using the fire as indirect justification for the hotel's removal." 

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