SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea said Sunday it will allow its citizens residing abroad to return home in line with the easing of pandemic cases around the world, as the country slowly eases its tough coronavirus restrictions.
In a brief statement carried by state media, the State Emergency Epidemic Prevention Headquarters said that those returning to North Korea would be quarantined for a week for “appropriate medical observation.”
The statement was not explained. But analysts expected the announcement to lead to a return of North Korean students, workers and others who had to stay abroad, mostly in China and Russia, because of the pandemic. Workers are a major source of foreign income for the country.
North Korea banned tourists, expelled diplomats and severely curtailed cross-border traffic and trade after the pandemic began. The closure has exacerbated chronic economic hardship and food insecurity in North Korea.
Earlier this month, South Korea’s spy agency said North Korea was preparing to gradually reopen its borders in a bid to revive its economy.
A North Korean commercial plane landed in Beijing on Tuesday, marking the first international commercial flight by North Korea to leave the country in nearly three and a half years. The plane returned from Beijing later in the day, but it was not known who was on board.
Earlier in August, a group of North Korean taekwondo athletes and officials traveled overland to Beijing and then took a flight to Kazakhstan to participate in an international competition.
The group of about 80 men and women dressed in white tracksuits with the North Korean flag in the front were seen in the departure hall of Beijing International Airport. It was the first time that a large delegation from North Korea had taken an international trip since the start of the epidemic.
Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at the private Sejong Institute, said the return of workers from overseas would mean the loss of a scarce source of foreign currency for North Korea, so the government is likely to push to send other workers to replace them in China. and Russia.
Accepting new North Korean workers would violate a United Nations Security Council resolution that obliges member states to return all North Korean workers from their territories by late 2019.
Given that North Korea plans to quarantine the returnees for one week, Cheung said it seems unlikely that North Korea will resume receiving Chinese and other foreign tourists anytime soon. He said that North Korea is expected to allow foreigners to enter the country next year if the return of its citizens does not cause an outbreak of the Corona virus.
In August 2022, North Korea made a highly dubious claim that it had overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. The following month, North Korea resumed freight train service with China, its largest trading partner and economic pipeline, but many of the restrictions it imposed on border crossings by individuals remained in place.
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