SEOUL, May 15 (UPI) — The United States extended its ban on travel to North Korea for the ninth year in a row, a federal notice showed, citing “imminent danger” posed by any trips to the authoritarian state.
In a public notice posted on the Federal Register on Wednesday, the State Department announced the extension, which will be in effect from Sept. 1 until Aug. 31, 2026, unless extended or revoked by the secretary of State. The current measure was set to expire at the end of August.
“The Department of State has determined there continues to be serious risk to U.S. citizens and nationals of arrest and long-term detention constituting imminent danger to their physical safety,” the notice said. “Accordingly, all U.S. passports shall remain invalid for travel to, in or through the DPRK unless specially validated for such travel under the authority of the Secretary of State.”
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.
The ban was initiated in September 2017 following the death of Otto Warmbier, a college student who was arrested in Pyongyang for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster in 2016.
Warmbier was released in June 2017 in a vegetative state and died six days after returning home. A federal judge later found North Korea to be responsible for his torture and death.
Tourism to North Korea has been almost nonexistent since Pyongyang sealed its borders at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2020.
In February of this year, a handful of Western travel agencies began offering small group tours to Rason, a special economic zone in the northeast of the country near the borders of China and Russia. However, North Korea abruptly halted the visits after less than three weeks.
In an update posted on its website this month, Beijing-based Young Pioneer Tours said that discussions are ongoing between North Korea and China “regarding the best way to facilitate sustainable tourism to the DPRK via China, given the sensitive nature of Rason as a Special Economic Zone.”
The majority of tourists to North Korea have traditionally come from China. Before the COVID-19 border closure, an estimated 95,000 Chinese tourists visited North Korea annually, alongside just 5,000 Western tourists.
In the wake of growing military and economic ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, Russian travelers were the first to return to North Korea post-COVID, when an Air Koryo passenger flight arrived from Vladivostok in February 2024.
Pyongyang also hosted its first international marathon in six years in April, which included runners from China, Morocco and Ethiopia.
Despite the paucity of international tourists, North Korea appears set to open a long-delayed massive beach resort next month.
Launched in 2014, the sprawling Wonsan Kalma tourist zone along the country’s east coast was initially slated to open in April 2019 but faced numerous setbacks including international sanctions on materials and the COVID-19 pandemic closures.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited the project site in December and declared it the “first big step” in advancing the country’s tourist industry, according to state-run Korean Central News Agency. The article announced a launch date of June.
The resort, which includes several hotels and thousands of rooms along 2.5 miles of coastline, is “very spectacular, beautiful and magnificent,” Kim said.
“Our country has tourist resources rich and diverse enough to arouse the envy of the world people, along with the political stability, institutional advantages and material and economic conditions essential for the development of tourist industry,” he added.
