North Korea rejects S. Korean press coverage of Punggye-ri

Journalists from foreign news outlets invited to cover North Korea's shutdown of its Punggye-ri nuclear test site this week leave Beijing Capital International Airport on Tuesday. South Korean reporters were denied visas by Pyongyang amid strained inter-Korean relations since the North canceled a high-level meeting last week. / Joint Press Corps

By Kim Bo-eun, Joint Press Corps

North Korea has refused visas for South Korean journalists to enter the North to cover the regime's shutdown of its Punggye-ri nuclear testing site this week. But reporters from the U.S., U.K., China and Russia received visas and left for North Korea on Tuesday.

North Korea invited South Korean media to cover the event, but has not responded to the South's submitted list of reporters.

Reporters from South Korean wire agency News1 and broadcaster MBC arrived in Beijing on Monday with hopes that visas would be issued before the flight to North Korea's Wonsan Kalma Airport the following day. But they were denied permission. Reporters from foreign news outlets including CNN, APTN, CCTV and TASS left for Wonsan Tuesday.

“We're going to go in there with our eyes wide open and we'll see what happens,” Will Ripley of CNN was quoted as saying to South Korean reporters before leaving Beijing airport.

“We hope that the North Koreans are going to be transparent like they say they are and they are going to show us the nuclear test site and the dismantlement.”

South Korean media plan to return to Seoul today and wait for any possibility of receiving visas that will be granted at the last minute.

The North apparently gave the South the cold shoulder over ongoing military drills between South Korea and the U.S., which Pyongyang cited as the reason for canceling high-level talks last week.

The first inter-Korean high-level meeting was set to take place on May 16 to discuss carrying out agreements reached at the inter-Korean summit on April 27, but the North canceled at the last minute.

Pyongyang also took issue with public statements by high-profile defector Thae Yong-ho. The former diplomat at the North Korean embassy in the U.K. told the South Korean press last week that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by no means will give up his nuclear program.

The statement came as North Korea and the U.S. are set to hold a summit on June 12 to discuss the former's denuclearization.

There had been progress in North-South relations after the April 27 summit, at which leaders agreed on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a peace treaty officially to end the 1950-1953 Korean War.

North Korea said it would shut down its Punggye-ri site, where it conducted six of its nuclear tests, and invite international journalists and experts to witness it. It stated on May 12 that it would invite journalists from five countries ― South Korea, the U.S., the U.K., China and Russia. North Korea on May 15 invited eight reporters from two South Korean news outlets ― a wire agency and broadcaster.

“We regret that South Korean journalists were unable to visit the North, despite North Korea's invitation to them for the Punggye-ri site shutdown,” the government said in a statement under Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon's name, Tuesday.

“Despite (the exclusion), we are focusing on the fact that the North is pushing forward with the Punggye-ri site shutdown, which is an early stage denuclearization measure that it promised.”

The North reportedly completed repairing a railroad that will take the journalists from Wonsan to the northern site of Punggye-ri. It has been seen conducting trial runs of the train. Earlier, 38 North reported that a tower was being set up in Punggye-ri for journalists who will cover the event.