North Korea on Friday sent official statements to the South demanding the removal of South Korean-built facilities from the Kumgangsan resort, the Ministry of Unification said.  According to the ministry, the statements were sent both to the ministry and to Hyundai Group early Friday. Hyundai Group is the South Korean company that led the development and operation of the resort at the North Korean mountain.In the statement, the North said a new “international tourism and culture zone&

North Korea has offered to discuss in writing with South Korea its decision to remove the South-built facilities at its Mount Kumgang tourist resort, the unification ministry said Friday.The offer came days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered the removal of all South Korea-constructed buildings through an "agreement with the relevant unit of the south side," stressing the North should not rely on the South for a now-suspended joint tour program to the scenic mountain."No

North Korea must first guarantee the safety of visitors if it wants South Korea to allow its citizens to travel across the border to the North's scenic Mount Kumgang, the unification ministry said Friday. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said that individual visits to the North's mountain are not subject to UN sanctions and that it is up to the unification ministry handling inter-Korean affairs as whether to approve them or not.Her remarks came a day after North Korea's state media r

NK leader inspects spa resort, signals intention for independent tourism development North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited a spa resort under construction, touting it as much better than the South Korean-built resort at Mount Kumgang, state media reported Friday, in an indication of his intention to develop the tourism industry without outside help. The "field guidance" trip to the Yangdok County Hot Spring Resort in central North Korea came just days after Kim visited Mount Kumgang

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Thursday that North Korea seemed disappointed that the inter-Korean tourism project had not resumed, commenting on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s orders to tear down the South’s facilities at the Kumgangsan tourist resort. In response to the report on Wednesday saying Kim had ordered the removal of “all the unpleasant-looking facilities of the south side” and wanted to “build new modern service facilities our own way,” t

North Korea has not made an official offer yet to South Korea for talks on its decision to remove South Korea-built facilities at the country's Mount Kumgang resort, a unification ministry official said Thursday.On Wednesday, state media reported that leader Kim Jong-un ordered the removal of all the "unpleasant-looking" buildings through an "agreement with the relevant unit of the south side," stressing the North should not rely on the South for a now-suspended joint tour pr

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was told by his father to never give up nuclear weapons, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner reportedly told a Trump biographer.According to Doug Wead’s book “Inside Trump’s White House,” Kushner discussed with Wead the letters that Kim and Trump wrote to each other, the Washington Times reported Tuesday.“You can see from these letters that Kim wants to be friends with Trump, but his father to

A former top North Korean nuclear envoy said Thursday he hopes to see the United States act "wisely" through the end of the year, apparently referring to the deadline Pyongyang set for Washington to come up with a new proposal in their denuclearization negotiations.In a statement, Kim Kye-gwan, a foreign ministry adviser, also voiced hope that "special" relations between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump will create a "motive force" to re

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered the pulling down of facilities built by South Korea at the Kumgangsan tourist resort, amid stalled inter-Korean diplomacy. 　According to the North’s official newspaper Rodong Sinmun and the Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday, the North Korean leader visited Kosong Port, Haegumgang Hotel, the House of Culture, Kumgangsan Hotel, Kumgangsan Okryu Restaurant, Kumgang Pension Town, Kuryong Village, Onchon Village, Family Hotel, Onjong Pavilion No

Top Swedish envoy ‘cautiously optimistic’ on NK-US talks

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un criticized his late father's policy of depending on South Korea for the development of the Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast, ordering the removal of "all the unpleasant-looking facilities" built by the South.During a "field guidance" visit to the mountain resort, Kim also ordered the construction of the country's own "modern service facilities" and said the North "will always welcome our compatriots from the South" to

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The United States was awarded ownership of a North Korean cargo ship that was seized for violating international sanctions, the US Justice Department said.The Wise Honest -- the first North Korean vessel to be seized by the US for sanctions violation -- was caught carrying a $3 million shipment of coal in Indonesian waters last year and later handed over to the US.The latest ruling by the Southern District of New York finalises the US government's seizure of the North Korean

The UN Security Council has granted sanctions waivers for an international Red Cross organization project to provide clean water and better sanitation in North Korea, the UN website showed Tuesday. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies received sanctions exemptions on materials "urgently required for lifesaving humanitarian assistance" in providing access to clean drinking water and improving sanitation, according to the website.A total of 11 items worth

US President Donald Trump said Monday that "a lot of things are going on" regarding North Korea, as doubts over the regime's will to denuclearize rose after the breakdown of nuclear talks with Pyongyang earlier this month.  During a Cabinet meeting, Trump also mentioned the prospects of a "major rebuild" while touting his engagement with the North, with a renewed claim that if somebody else became president, "you'd, right now, be in a big war.""Something i

North Korean propaganda outlets slammed South Korea on Tuesday over its plans to conduct missile tests and develop new weapons, calling such moves "outright provocations" that will have consequences.The criticism came after a top South Korean military officer said earlier this month that the military has conducted test-firings of some of its Hyunmoo missiles this year and plans to routinely conduct such live drills.South Korea's Navy said recently that it is operating a task force on t