Associated Press opens the first full international news bureau in communist North Korea

TOKYO (TR) – The Associated Press on Monday opened the first full-time international news bureau in North Korea, nearly a month after the death of Kim Jong-il.

The new full-service bureau comes a year after the AP started negations with the North Korean government, the news agency said. The deal allows Associated Press journalists, videographers and photojournalists to work inside the reclusive nation on a full-time basis.

AP President and CEO Tom Curley attended the inauguration of the new office. “Everyone at the Associated Press takes his or her responsibilities of a free and fair press with utmost seriousness,” the news agency cited Curley as saying. “The world knows very little about the DPRK, and this gives us a unique opportunity to bring the world news that it doesn’t now have,” he said.

The newest AP office is located in Pyongyang in the same building that houses the headquarters of the state-run Korean Central News Agency. The new bureau is another first for the Associated Press by a western news organization in North Korea; in 2006, the AP opened a video bureau in the North Korean capital.

Source: AP

Related articles: