North Korean leader Kim Jong Un traveled to the country’s Mount Kumgang region this week, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Wednesday, denouncing a once-celebrated tourism project set up jointly with the South as “built like makeshift tents in a disaster-stricken area."

In sharply-worded remarks, Kim was reported to have said that the famous tourist site, a hub of hotels and restaurants once hailed as a defining symbol of inter-Korean cooperation before it was closed in 2008, would be better off being managed without South Korean involvement.