North Korea Set to Welcome First Known Tourists Since 2020
North Korea is about to welcome a group of Russians who will become the first tourists to visit the country since Pyongyang ordered its borders closed in 2020 at the height of the COVID pandemic.
A report in Russian state media this week said sightseers will first fly to the North Korean capital before heading to a ski resort on the east coast. The trip is the latest signal of deepening ties between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who met for a summit in September and appear to be finding increasingly common cause in their respective conflicts against the U.S. and its allies.
The trip was arranged between North Korean authorities and Oleg Kozhemyako, the governor of Russia’s Primorsky Krai region, the state media report said. Kozhemyako went to Pyongyang last month following the Putin-Kim meeting, telling the Russian press ahead of his trip that he expected to discuss tourism and other topics, the Associated Press reports.