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NKOREA-TOURISM-ANNIVERSARY-POLITICS
N. Korea suspends tour visas ahead of anniversary
SEOUL, Aug 14, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – North Korea has stopped processing tourist
visas for foreigners ahead of a high profile anniversary next month,
according to a China-based tour operator.
The measure follows reports that Pyongyang had suspended visits by Chinese
tour groups as it prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the foundation of
the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as the country is officially
known.
Koryo Tours, a popular agency among Western tourists seeking to visit the
North, said on its website it had been “informed on 13 August by our partners
in Pyongyang that they had been instructed from above that all tourist visa
applications currently underway are to be frozen”.
It was not given a reason for the freeze, the company said, but was told it
would apply until the anniversary on September 9.
“This suggests to us that… a higher power in the country is simply
pressing pause on tourism until it is clear to them who is coming in such
delegations and how many people,” it added.
Pyongyang has previously lavishly celebrated the date with military parades
or mass games involving thousands of people performing acrobatic choreography
in unison, and is expected this time to hold its first mass games for five
years.
Speculation has also mounted that the nuclear-armed North could be
preparing to mount a parade — at which it normally shows off some of the
weapons that have earned it multiple sets of UN Security Council sanctions.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is speculated to be on the guest list, as
officials in the North told South Korean journalists that he was invited to
the event.
In his New Year speech in January, leader Kim Jong Un said North Korean
people would “greet the 70th founding anniversary of their Republic as a
great, auspicious event”.
The occasion comes during a rare diplomatic detente on the Korean peninsula
which has seen the South’s president Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un meet twice,
with a third summit planned for September.
The rapprochement also led to a landmark summit between Kim and US
President Donald Trump in Singapore in June, where the two leaders signed a
vague agreement on denuclearisation.
Although Trump touted his summit with Kim as a historic breakthrough, the
North has since criticised Washington for its “gangster-like” demands of
complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament.
The US has urged the international community to maintain tough sanctions on
the isolated regime.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1154 hrs