Entry ban, sanctions interrupt running of only int'l university in North Korea

SEOUL, Feb. 23 (Yonhap) -- The United States government ban on the entry of Americans into North Korea, coupled with international sanctions, is disrupting the only foreign-operated university in North Korea, the president of the university said Friday.

Speaking at a lecture hosted by the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies, Yu-taik Chon, president of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), said he has been barred from entering North Korea even though he is the university's president. He took the job in March last year.

He is now based in China where he remotely helps to run the university.

The U.S. government prohibited Americans from traveling to the communist country in September last year, following the death of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who traveled to North Korea, was convicted of a crime there and returned home in a coma.
The entry ban has caused serious disruption, as roughly 30 of the university's 75 foreign professors are American and cannot enter the country, the president said.

A medical education department was added to the university last year with its entire faculty brought in from the U.S. But all of them are currently unable to fill their teaching posts, he said.

The university is situated in the outskirts of Pyongyang. It is one of few channels through which North Koreans can access knowledge and education from outside of the reclusive country. The school was founded on Christian evangelism and is operated with donations from outside of the North.

The president said PUST is the only university in the North that provides education on business administration and international finance, subjects North Korea rejects as for capitalists only.

It currently has more than 500 students, all selected by the North Korean authorities. Foreign volunteer professors work unpaid. About 500 others have graduated from the school.

Chon also said the international sanctions targeting the North Korean banking network are also weighing heavily on the operation of the university.

"Our university itself is not on the United Nations sanctions list. But we cannot transmit money to the North from the U.S.," he said, referring to American banks' reluctance to do business with financial companies in North Korea. As a result, he is using "very difficult channels" to move the donated money to the North, he said.

This obstacle is interrupting the school's plan to construct a building for the newly-launched medical school, he noted.

Ahead of this year's graduation ceremony, which is set for March 28, American professors, including the president, are trying to win a special exemption from the entry ban from the U.S. government, "but it's not progressing very well," Chon said.

pbr@yna.co.kr
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