The US on Wednesday banned its citizens from traveling to North Korea, a move triggered by the death of a US student imprisoned by Pyongyang during a tourist visit.
The ban, which takes effect on Sept. 1, was introduced after officials said the “serious risk” of arrest by Pyongyang officials during tourist travel presented an “imminent danger to the physical safety” of its citizens.
“All United States passports are declared invalid for travel to, in, or through the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] unless specially validated for such travel,” read the restriction in the US government’s Federal Register.
Strict warnings against travel to the North were already in place before the ban was first announced last month following the death of student Otto Warmbier.
Warmbier, 22, a student at the University of Virginia, died in June after being imprisoned for more than a year on charges of stealing a propaganda poster from a North Korean hotel.
He had been sentenced to 15 years’ hard labor, but was sent home in a mysterious coma in June and died soon afterwards.
US President Donald Trump slammed Warmbier’s detention and eventual death as “a total disgrace,” pledging to “prevent such tragedies from befalling innocent people at the hands of regimes that do not respect the rule of law or basic human decency.”
The new ban will remain in effect for one year, unless it is revoked by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Exemptions will be allowed in specific cases for humanitarian travel and journalists.
Tour companies said the ban would significantly reduce the numbers of Western tourists to the country.
“Currently US citizens make up about 20 percent of the Western tourist market, so it will reduce the industry by at least that much — plus the collateral damage of others who may not want to go as a result of this,” said Simon Cockerell, general manager of Koryo Tours, the market leader in Western tourism to North Korea.
About 5,000 Western tourists visit the North each year, with standard one-week trips costing about US$2,000. The vast majority of tourists visiting the North are Chinese.
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