North Korea ‘Kim Jong-il’ birthday tours to open: tour agency

Name: Behind North Korea’s closed curtains: the Kim regime’s ongoing struggle against collapse
Uploaded: 2025-02-03T08:15:21.000Z
Duration: 16 min 26 s
Description: Behind North Korea’s closed curtains: the Kim regime’s ongoing struggle against collapse

Rason, a city on the border with China, will open to foreign tourists, five years after Pyongyang sealed its frontiers over Covid-19

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Skyline of North Korea’s northeastern city of Rason. The Rason tours were scheduled to start in China, with guests to be driven to the border with the nuclear-armed North. Photo: AFP

Agence France-Presse

Published: 4:15pm, 3 Feb 2025

A tour operator said on Monday it had opened bookings for trips to a North Korean border city to celebrate former leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday, offering foreign tourists the first chance to visit since the pandemic.

Tour operators said in January that North Korea would reopen Rason, a city on the border with China, to foreign tourists, five years after Pyongyang sealed its frontiers in response to Covid-19.

Neither North Korea nor China have commented on the plans.

Koryo Tours said the February tour in Rason would be “the first trip back to North Korea since the borders closed in January 2020”.

“This tour will take you to the must-see sites in Rason, North Korea’s special economic zone. Plus, you will travel to North Korea to celebrate one of the biggest holidays, Kim Jong-il’s birthday,” the Beijing-based travel agency wrote on its website.

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Behind North Korea’s closed curtains: the Kim regime’s ongoing struggle against collapse

The birthdays of members of the ruling Kim dynasty are typically feted in North Korea with large scale public celebrations.