Foreign diplomats exit Pyongyang amid virus fight

Germany’s Foreign Ministry calls North Korea’s quarantine of foreign diplomats in Pyongyang a “disproportionate” anti-virus measure that leaves no choice but to “bring back the staff.” Yonhap via The Korea Herald/Asia News Network

SEOUL — Dozens of diplomats in North Korea shuttered offices in Pyongyang and left the country Monday, following weeks of tight quarantine restrictions on diplomatic missions there to contain the novel coronavirus.

Yet to report a single infection, North Korea has enforced strong quarantine measures, closing borders with China, where the epidemic started, and confining foreign nationals, including diplomats, to their own premises.

North Korea lifted the monthlong quarantine on foreign diplomats on March 2.

The “forced quarantine” was one of the “disproportionate” anti-virus measures that prompted the temporary shutdown of the embassy, Germany’s Foreign Ministry said, blaming Pyongyang for leaving no choice but to “bring back the staff.”

France and Switzerland followed suit, closing their diplomatic missions and relocating staff there to Vladivostok, Russia, the same day.

France’s Foreign Ministry said the “drastic containment measures” impeded the work of the French Cooperation Office in Pyongyang, where it maintains an exchange office instead of an embassy.

Switzerland suspended its Cooperation Office in Pyongyang as well, claiming the office’s humanitarian assistance and peace promotion efforts were further challenged by North Korea’s border lockdown.

“It’s fundamentally about the question of access inside North Korea and the way that the North Koreans are applying quarantine,” Scott Snyder, a senior fellow at Council on Foreign Relations, told Voice of America.

Despite North Korea’s assertion that it has no infections, international health experts have repeatedly cast doubt on the claim.

“There is no way we can trust North Korean media on information regarding the coronavirus,” Daniel Bastard, head of Asia-Pacific desk at Reporters without Borders said, adding that the communist regime also withholds information to misguide its people and the international public.

Tomas Ojea Quintana, UN special rapport for human rights in North Korea, urged Pyongyang on Monday to grant full access for medical and humanitarian experts, because a widespread infection would further jeopardize the already malnourished North Korean population.