Associated Press president says new office will operate under the same standards and practices as AP bureaux worldwide

This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

North Korea has allowed the Associated Press to open the first full western news bureau in the tightly controlled and highly secretive country.

The North permits foreign media occasional visits, often for important ceremonial occasions, although journalists are restricted in their movements and accompanied by officials.

AP said the move followed a year of discussions. It planned to open its office in December, but postponed the official launch after the death of leader Kim Jong-il. Its executives were en route to Pyongyang when state media announced the news and had to return to Beijing.

The agency opened a video bureau in the North in 2006. Its photographers and reporters will now be able to work there on a regular basis, it said.

AP's president and CEO, Tom Curley, said in a statement the Pyongyang bureau would operate under the same standards and practices as AP bureaux worldwide.

He added: "Everyone at the Associated Press takes his or her responsibilities of a free and fair press with utmost seriousness."

"We pledge to do our best to reflect accurately the people of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as well as what they do and say."

The permanent reporter and photographer are North Korean. Authorities decide who works with foreigners and citizens face serious repercussions for disclosures made without approval in a state that arguably controls information more tightly than any other.

While AP's bureau chief in Seoul and its chief Asia photographer will visit regularly to report, Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul said foreign reporters would find it "difficult or impossible" to meet North Koreans who had not been authorised to talk to them.

"North Koreans will be in complete control of their access," he said.

Foreigners would need permission for any trips outside Pyongyang and would be escorted, although they would probably be able to move more freely inside the city. They should assume all communications would be intercepted, he said.

But Lankov added: "It makes sense to be on the ground, just in case. When things start changing, it will be very difficult if not impossible to secure [that kind of access].

"It is not impossible that very soon North Korea will start changing. I am sceptical but can't rule it out. [If so], their presence on the ground might become decisive."

He also noted that in the past, one correspondent for Russia's Itar-Tass agency - which, like China's Xinhua, has a base in Pyongyang - had been able to provide some insights purely from his observations of life on the streets of the capital.

The AP bureau is based inside the official Korean Central News Agency.

KCNA's president, Kim Pyong-ho, said AP had "promised to report on the DPRK with fairness, balance and accuracy, and have tried to follow through in collaboration with KCNA".