International Courant
The North Korean embassy in Beijing didn’t reply to a request for remark.
A former South Korean authorities official mentioned he was requested to depart a North Korean restaurant in Dandong after workers overheard him talking their shared language with a buddy.
“The tone was very hostile,” mentioned the person, who requested to not be named.
“I felt very annoyed, uncomfortable. I felt sorry for them.”
Earlier than visiting Dandong, he mentioned he had heard that North Korean chief Kim Jong Un had ordered eating places to cease serving South Koreans.
These bans have occurred earlier than, he mentioned — normally when inter-Korean relations are at a low ebb.
“However understanding and experiencing is one thing else,” he mentioned.
“Being rejected to your face… that is actually dangerous.”
‘Enemy state’
After a quick easing of tensions within the late 2010s, helped by three summits between Kim and then-South Korea President Moon Jae-in, relations between Seoul and Pyongyang have nosedived.
In September, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol warned Pyongyang in a speech that “his regime will finish” if it ever makes use of nuclear weapons.
Pyongyang, in the meantime, has repeatedly mocked the “puppet authorities” in Seoul for finishing up a document variety of missile checks in 2023.
“The North’s ban on South Korean guests is in step with its aggressive stance in coping with the South,” Mr Hong Min of the Korea Institute for Nationwide Unification advised AFP.
“It’s an instance of his place that South Korea is a hostile state and never one with which it may well cooperate.”
South Korea’s Unification Ministry – which manages relations with the North – declined to remark.
“We will assume that that is associated to the Yoon authorities and the final deterioration of relations throughout his administration,” mentioned Assistant Professor Chris Inexperienced, a Korea skilled on the Dutch College of Leiden.
North Korean eateries in China are turning away South Korean diners
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