WIKIMEDIA, ROMAN HARAKOn Friday (July 21), the US State Department issued a travel ban against US passport holders traveling to North Korea. The travel restriction, prompted by concerns over North Korea’s law enforcement practices, including the long-term detention of people suspected of committing crimes, has suspended scientists’ plans for traveling to the nation.
“[I]f we are not allowed to travel to the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] this fall it will certainly delay, if not undermine altogether, our long-term plans for scholarly exchange with North Korea,” says Charles Armstrong, a history professor at Columbia University, in an email to The Scientist. Armstrong had organized a trip for himself and three scientists to visit Kim II Sung University in North Korea in the hopes of building relationships with researchers and scholars there. “[B]ut it is now up in the air due to the uncertainty of the new ban.”
The State Department confirmed to The Scientist that the travel restriction will go into effect 30 days after it posts a notice to the Federal Register, which is expected this ...
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