AFP opens North Korea office

"The opening of this office fills a gap in the AFP network of around 200 offices in 150 countries," said AFP President Emmanuel Hoog at the official opening in the capital Pyongyang on Tuesday evening. The office will provide AFP customers worldwide with videos and photos from North Korea, for which a North Korean photographer and a video journalist are responsible. The office is headed by AFP's regional directorate for Asia, which is based in Hong Kong. "AFP is committed to freedom of information and freedom of expression, which are among its core values," said Hoog at a meeting with the president of the North Korean state news agency KCNA, Kim Chang Gwang. Both agencies had reached an agreement at the beginning of the year that enables AFP to regularly send text editors as well as video and photo journalists to North Korea. This makes AFP the second global news agency with a branch in communist North Korea. Access for media representatives there is extremely restrictive. Until now, the US news agency Associated Press (AP) was the only global news agency to have a branch in North Korea. The Japanese Kyodo and a Chinese news agency are also represented there. (SDA)