US ends visa-free entry for visitors to North Korea

The United States has revoked visa-free entry rights to the country, for foreigners who have visited North Korea in the past eight years.

This move may deal a new blow to the isolated country's nascent tourism industry.

The US allows citizens of 38 countries - including South Korea, Japan and France - to enter for up to 90 days without a visa under a waiver programme.

But visitors who have travelled to eight countries including North Korea since March 1, 2011, are "no longer eligible". As per details posted on the US Customs and Border Protection website, they will have to apply for



tourist or business visas.

The other seven countries - most of them in the Middle East - were already on the exclusion list.

The change will affect thousands of people from visa waiver countries who have gone to the North as tourists or for other purposes in recent years. It will also put a damper on South Korean President Moon Jae-in's hopes of promoting cross-border tourism projects.

US citizens have been banned from visiting North Korea since 2017 after an American student detained in Pyongyang was released in a coma and died a few days later.