SEOUL/BERLIN: A German delegation visited the North Korean capital Pyongyang for the first time since its embassy was closed during the pandemic as other European countries prepare for an expected return. A team from the German Federal Foreign Office was currently in Pyongyang on a technical inspection trip, a foreign office spokesman told Reuters. “He is inspecting the grounds of the German embassy in a few days,” the spokeswoman said, adding that no decision has yet been made on reopening the embassy, which was closed in March 2020.
Many embassies have closed in Pyongyang because they could not rotate staff or ship supplies during the COVID-19 crisis. Already under authoritarian control, North Korea has imposed some of the world’s strictest pandemic measures, including near-total travel bans and extensive border walls, and has only recently begun to ease international restrictions. Britain, which closed its embassy and withdrew all diplomatic staff from North Korea in May 2020, was also seeking to send a team, a Foreign Office spokesman told Reuters.
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“We are happy that some diplomats are returning to Pyongyang and we welcome the DPRK’s steps to reopen the borders,” the spokesman said, using the initials of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “We are in discussions with the DPRK government through its embassy in London on arrangements for an early visit by a UK technical-diplomatic team.” Britain has called on North Korea to allow the international community, including all diplomats and UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs, to enter the country, the spokesman added.
Peter Semneby, Sweden’s special envoy to Korea Peninsula told Reuters there had been some progress toward the eventual return of Swedish diplomats to Pyongyang, but declined to elaborate, citing the sensitivity of the negotiations. “There has been some movement and we hope to be able to restore our embassy relatively soon,” he said. One diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, noted that the shuttered facilities would need to be swept for listening devices, cleaned of insects and repaired after years of closure.
According to NK Pro, a research website in Seoul that tracks North Korea, nine countries had functioning embassies in Pyongyang as of January 2023, but only China, Russia, Mongolia and Cuba were allowed to rotate staff at their embassies as of last year.
