This undated file photo, provided by the East Asia Education, Culture and Cooperation Foundation, shows a foreign professor at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology teaching English in 2011. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — Some foreign professors at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology have returned to North Korea after a four-year hiatus over COVID-19, Seoul officials said Monday, in the latest sign of the North’s further border opening.
Late last month, an unspecified number of foreign professors at North Korea’s sole international private university entered North Korea, as the regime has issued visas to them, according to Tae Yong-ho, secretary general of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council.
“North Korean authorities issuing the visas means that they will ensure the safety of foreign professors,” Tae said.
Pyongyang University of Science and Technology was established in 2010, funded by a South Korean nongovernmental organization and North Korea’s education ministry. The faculty consists of U.S. and European nationals, including Korean Americans, and all lectures are given in English.
All of the professors at the university had to leave Pyongyang as North Korea closed its border in early 2020 over the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, they have operated college lectures online.
Since North Korea began reopening its border in August last year, it has partially approved the entry of foreigners, including diplomats from countries sharing socialist values with the North or Russian tourists.
In the case of the foreign university professors, North Korea appears to have issued a resident visa to people with Western nationality for the first time since its border reopening.
Currently, diplomats from countries with diplomatic missions in North Korea and field workers from international organizations have not been allowed to return to North Korea, after they left the reclusive regime due to COVID-19.
Earlier this year, some European diplomats, including those from Germany and Sweden, visited Pyongyang, but the trips were one-off visits designed to conduct a technical check to review a possible resumption of their diplomatic missions.
(Yonhap)
