SUN’S OUT, UN’S OUT
North Korea’s infamous Benidorm knock-off delayed AGAIN… but Kim vows resort WILL be open in 2025
The vast resort will be able to accommodate up to 100,000 visitors at a time
KIM Jong-un has once again pushed back the grand opening of his Benidorm-style beach resort he hopes will lure in tourists.
The North Korean dictator visited the seaside spot on the eastern coast over the weekend to see how his vanity project was coming along.
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But it appears to have hit choppy waters as the opening has once again been delayed.
The resort in Wonsan, at a former missile launch site, was due to open this summer for tourists - including Brits.
Kim's visions for a holiday hotspot that mimics Spain are taking longer than expected, however.
The so-called Galma Coastal Tourist Zone is now not due to welcome holidaymakers until June 2025.
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Kim ordered the beach resort be constructed in 2017 after officials were "amazed" by a research trip to Spain's Costa Blanca.
He and his daughter Ju-ae were pictured strolling along the beach at the weekend.
Another snap shows Kim taking a rest on a stool in a plush hotel room.
According to state media, the dumpy "joyous" dictator "feasted his eyes with a bright smile".
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He reportedly said: " When guiding the construction on the spot, 1 had said that Myongsasimni would be a 4km-long stretch of beach crowded with people full of happy laughter.
"Now the ideal has come true.
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"The construction of the Kalma coastal tourist area is the first big step of great significance in putting the national tourist industry on a track of epochal development."
Decked out with more than 150 buildings, the resort is set to be one of the largest single-operator beach resorts in the world in terms of length.
Plans previously boasted the vast resort would be able to accommodate up to 100,000 visitors at a time.
But even before Covid, only up to 200,000 foreign tourists visited North Korea a year.
Kim last visited the resort in July - his first in five years.
Covid previously threw a spanner in the works as North Korea was forced to implement some of the most aggressive quarantine policies in the world and its borders closed.
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It meant Kim struggled to secure funding and materials needed for the project.
But while construction is now back in swing, holidaymakers may be holding off dusting off their passports.
Travel to North Korea is widely viewed as dangerous - with several tourists previously detained.
American passport holders are even banned from travelling to the hermit kingdom unless they receive an exemption from the Department of State.
At the moment, the UK's Foreign Office advises against "all but essential travel" to North Korea.
It warns: "While daily life in the capital city Pyongyang may appear calm, the security situation can change quickly with no advance warning about possible actions by the authorities.
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"This poses significant risks to British visitors and residents."
The Government department also warns of high levels of tension in the area as Kim continues to plough on with nuclear and missile tests.
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