North Korea will allow its citizens abroad to return home, a sign of further easing of pandemic restrictions

Seoul, South Korea. North Korea said on Sunday it will allow its citizens abroad to return home in line with easing the pandemic situation around the world, as the country slowly eases its draconian coronavirus restrictions.

In a brief statement carried by state media, the State Emergency Epidemic Prevention Headquarters said those returning to North Korea will be quarantined for a week for “proper medical observation.”

The statement gave no further details. But analysts predicted the announcement would spark the return of North Korean students, workers and others who have had to stay abroad, mainly in China and Russia, due to the pandemic. The workers are a key source of foreign income for the country.

North Korea banned tourists, expelled diplomats and severely restricted border traffic and trade after the pandemic began. The blockade has further worsened the North’s chronic economic hardship and food insecurity.

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.

On Tuesday, a North Korean commercial plane landed in Beijing in what was the first such international commercial flight that North Korea had left the country in about three and a half years. The plane returned from Beijing later that day, but it was not known who was on board.

In early August, a group of North Korean taekwondo athletes and officials traveled overland to Beijing and then flew to Kazakhstan to participate in an international competition.

The group of about 80 men and women dressed in white sports suits with the North Korean flag on the front were seen at the departure hall of Beijing International Airport. It was the first time such a large delegation from North Korea had made an international trip since the pandemic began.

Cheong Seong-Chang, an analyst at the private Sejong Institute, said the return of workers from abroad will mean the loss of a rare source of hard currency for North Korea, so the government will likely push to send other workers to replace them in China. and Russia.

Accepting new North Korean workers would violate a UN Security Council resolution that required member states to repatriate all North Korean workers from their territories by the end of 2019.

Since North Korea intends to quarantine returnees for a week, Cheong said it seems unlikely that North Korea will resume receiving Chinese and other foreign tourists any time soon. He said North Korea is expected to allow foreigners into the country next year if the return of its nationals does not cause a coronavirus outbreak.

In August 2022, North Korea made a highly dubious claim to have overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. The following month, North Korea resumed freight train service with China, its biggest trading partner and economic pipeline, but many of its restrictions on individual border crossings remain in place.