SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Wednesday that its leader, Kim Jong-un, had ordered the demolition of South Korean hotels and other buildings in a resort complex that the two countries once operated together.

The resort town at Diamond Mountain, or Kumgang, just north of the inter-Korean border, opened in 1998, at a time of reduced tensions between the Koreas. Until it was closed during a dispute in 2008, it served as a major source of foreign currency for the cash-starved North, frequently hosting South Korean tour groups.

Mr. Kim said during a recent visit that the South Korean facilities were “shabby” and lacked “national character,” comparing them to “makeshift tents in a disaster-stricken area,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported on Wednesday.

Mr. Kim has pressed South Korea to reopen the complex since last year, when he first met with the South’s president, Moon Jae-in. But the South said it could only consider doing so as part of a broader agreement between the United States and North Korea to end the North’s nuclear weapons program.