Brad Sherman '100,000 Korean Americans hope to reunite with North Korean families'

Brad Sherman: “100,000 Korean Americans hope to reunite with their North Korean families”

(Washington = Yonhap News) Correspondent Park Seong-min = Opposition lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives urged the Donald Trump administration to lift the ban on travel to North Korea.

Rep. Brad Sherman (Democrat, California), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, pointed out in a statement on the 10th (local time), "Amid the disappointment of many Korean-Americans, Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently extended the ban on U.S. citizens traveling to North Korea for the 10th consecutive year."

“Approximately 100,000 Korean Americans still hope to reunite with their elderly relatives in North Korea, but this ban makes that impossible,” he said. “It is time for the State Department to change its policy to ensure that Korean Americans have the opportunity to attend funerals in North Korea and heal the wounds of long separations.”

On July 20, the U.S. State Department announced in the Federal Register a notice extending the ban on its citizens traveling to North Korea until August 31 of next year.

In 2017, the first year of the first Trump administration, the United States banned travel to North Korea from September 1 after American college student Otto Warmbier was detained in North Korea and died shortly after being released in a coma, and has renewed the ban every year.

However, in response to a Yonhap News inquiry regarding whether to expand permission to visit North Korea for humanitarian aid, the State Department stated on the 5th of last month that the travel advisory for Americans to North Korea remains at the highest level, a travel ban, while maintaining its position that it is open to dialogue with North Korea without preconditions.