Public Tours of the JSA to Restart This Week
|For anyone looking to take a tour of the JSA, the popular tours will restart this week:
Tours to the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom will resume this week and visitors will be allowed to explore an expanded area, the South Korean defense ministry said Monday.
Stars & Stripes
The popular tours to the Joint Security Area, which straddles the heavily fortified border, were suspended in October to facilitate efforts to demilitarize the buffer zone.
North and South Korea agreed during their historic April 27, 2018, summit in Panmunjom to allow visitors freedom of movement within the JSA from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
That plan has been delayed because the U.S.-led United Nations Command, which oversees the area, and the two Koreas have not agreed on a joint code of conduct deemed necessary for security purposes.
South Korea decided “to resume field trips on the southern side” beginning Wednesday to mark the summit’s first anniversary, according to the defense ministry.
Past tours, which local officials have said drew some 100,000 visitors per year, were tightly controlled.
Visitors will now get to see more sites than had been previously allowed, including the blue footbridge where South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had a private chat and the pine tree that was planted to commemorate the meeting.
You can read more at the link.
So the Norks want more access, just like in 1976? What could possibly go wrong, kidnapping of visitors, claiming they broke an imaginary rule , saying they are in custody but hustling them to Kim Fatty the Third ASAP. Beating a few JSA officers to death because they are following the rules, unlike the Norks.
Just one more step in an uncertain direction; but I don’t think I’ll risk it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mmE669ZKwo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7iYJeVsyM