Highlights: Commercial flight of the North Korean airline Air Koryo landed in Beijing on Tuesday, August 22. It is also expected that the air link will resume soon with the city of Vladivostok in Russia. The regime is multiplying signs of openness after three years of almost total isolation of North Korea. The possible opening could prove fatal for the nearly 2,000 North Korean defectors detained in China and who could soon be repatriated. But the resumption of air traffic could help repatriate some of the regime's tens of thousands of workers abroad.

Is North Korea preparing for the opening? This Tuesday, August 22, for the first time since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, a commercial flight of the North Korean company Air Koryo landed...

Pyongyang-Beijing commercial flight, first sign of openness after Covid in North Korea

Is North Korea preparing for the opening? On Tuesday, August 22, for the first time since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, a commercial flight of the North Korean airline Air Koryo landed in Beijing. It is also expected that the air link will resume soon with the city of Vladivostok in Russia. The regime is multiplying signs of openness after three years of almost total isolation of North Korea.

A North Korean commercial flight landed in Beijing after three years of Covid-19 restrictions, August 22, 2023. AP - Andy Wong

Text by: RFI Follow

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With our correspondent in Seoul, Nicolas Rocca

The landing of an Air Koryo flight from Pyongyang at Beijing airport on Tuesday, August 22 looks like a return to normal. After the visit of the Russian and Chinese delegations at the end of July, a North Korean taekwondo team visited Kazakhstan last week. And now air links are resuming with China and Russia. These signs of North Korea's openness after more than three years of drastic border control are for now reserved for foreign dignitaries and a few North Koreans.

No information has filtered out about who was on board the flight to Beijing, but the resumption of air traffic could help repatriate some of the regime's tens of thousands of workers abroad. In Vietnam, Russia or Africa, they have been stuck away from home for more than three years. South Korean media also reported hundreds of North Korean students waiting to return home from Dandong, a Chinese city near the border.

However, this possible opening could prove fatal for the nearly 2,000 North Korean defectors detained in China and who could soon be repatriated. Despite South Korea's requests to take in refugees who fled North Korea, Beijing has said it has no intention of cooperating with Seoul and considers these defectors illegal migrants to be sent back to their countries of origin.

" READ ALSO China: North Korean refugees fear deportation after the reopening of borders

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North Korea
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China
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Pyongyang-Beijing commercial flight, first sign of openness after Covid in North Korea

Pyongyang-Beijing commercial flight, first sign of openness after Covid in North Korea

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