Reopening of North Korea’s Borders to Foreign Citizens
With the official media claiming on Sunday that residents who had been residing abroad have been permitted to rejoin the nation, North Korea has taken steps to further open up from its severe social isolation. The State Emergency Epidemic Prevention Headquarters reportedly said that “citizens abroad have been allowed to return home,” according to state-run KCNA.
The article said that those who were repatriated “will be put under proper medical observation at quarantine wards for a week.” The decision had been taken “in reference to the eased global pandemic situation,” it was said.
In reaction to the coronavirus outbreak, North Korea closed its borders in early 2020. However, there have been rising signs that the government is moving toward reopening. Last month, Chinese and Russian officials — the first foreign dignitaries to visit the nation in years — were present during a military display in Pyongyang.
A group of athletes was permitted to go to Kazakhstan last week to compete in taekwondo, while state-run Air Koryo completed its first three-year-old foreign commercial flight.
Only two North Koreans, identifiable by their unique badges depicting the pictures of past presidents Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, were seen by AFP reporters when the plane landed Tuesday morning at Beijing’s Capital Airport. No one talked to the media.
A monitoring service revealed that a second Air Koryo aircraft headed for Pyongyang took off just after 1:00 p.m. Photos showing many North Koreans waiting in line to check bags for that aircraft were released by the Yonhap News Agency, located in Seoul. When questioned about the flights, the Chinese foreign ministry said that Beijing and Pyongyang commercial aviation traffic had been resumed.
According to Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, “during the summer and autumn flight season… the Chinese side approved flight plans for passengers, such as the Pyongyang-Beijing and Beijing-Pyongyang routes of Air Koryo.”
