A ban on travel by U.S. passport holders to North Korea will take effect on Sept. 1 and Americans in the country should leave before that date, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday.
U.S. citizens wishing to travel to North Korea would have to obtain a special validation for their passports, which would only be granted in limited circumstances, the department said in a statement.
The State Department said the restriction is in response to “the serious risk to United States nationals of arrest and long-term detention.” The State Department’s decision followed the death in June of Otto Wambier, a 22-year-old American who was visiting North Korea when authorities there arrested him. The North Korean government sentenced Warmbier, a student at the University of Virginia, to 15 years of hard labor for allegedly trying to “steal a propaganda poster.”
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