North to reopen borders 'soon,' tour agency says

North Korea will “soon” open its borders for the first time in over three years to its own citizens, a company that organizes tours to the country said Friday.

The Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, which spans the Yalu River and links Sinuiju, North Korea, with Dandong, China, is seen in this photograph taken in April 2014. [YONHAP]

North Korea will "soon" reopen its borders for the first time in over three years to its own nationals, a company that organizes tours inside the hermetic regime said Friday.

In an announcement on its website, Koryo Tours said it "received the official news on Thursday that North Korea is expected to officially open its border again very soon."

The company said it received news of the border reopening from North Korean sources.

But Koryo Tours noted that the initial phase of the country's reopening "is for North Korean citizens only."

Pyongyang implemented one of the strictest border closures in the world in response to the spread of Covid-19 in neighboring China in early 2020.

With few exceptions, the North has refused entry to anyone not already inside the country when the pandemic began, including its own workers, businesspeople, students and diplomats.

Koryo Tours said it expects the North's border reopening will first apply to the regime's own citizens before being "expanded soon afterwards," with entry into the North "likely" being extended to diplomats and staff from non-governmental organizations before applying to tourists.

Koryo Tours also said it expects North Koreans "to return home by train," given that international flights to Pyongyang have not yet resumed.

While the border reopening would allow North Koreans who were stranded abroad during the pandemic to return home, it also raises the specter of repatriation for defectors from China.

China does not recognize North Korean defectors as refugees but classifies them as economic migrants and subjects them to deportation back to the North, where they often face severe punishment.

Due to the North's border closures, China has not been able to repatriate captured defectors.

But activists and human rights groups warned the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China in June that almost 2,000 North Koreans held in detention centers in China could be forcibly repatriated once the North opens its borders.

Hanna Song, director of the Seoul-based Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB), showed the commission satellite images of construction at Chinese detention facilities near the border that could potentially expand their capacity to hold more North Korean defectors caught in China.

She said the current number of North Koreans held in detention centers in China is likely between 600 and 2,000.

In a statement to the commission, Suzanne Scholte, president of the Virginia-based human rights advocacy Defense Forum Foundation, said, "There are credible rumors that the North Korea-China border will reopen soon" and that China's "first export" to North Korea could be "the nearly 2,000 North Korean children, women and men" who are currently detained.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]