Under an agreement signed in Paris on Tuesday January 19 with KCNA (the Korean Central News Agency), Agence France-Presse will open a permanent bureau in Pyongyang, North Korea.
‘The opening of an Agence France-Presse bureau in Pyongyang will further strengthen the Agency’s international network. AFP’s role is to be present everywhere in the world in order to fulfil its news mission as completely as possible, in particular through images,’ said AFP Chairman Emmanuel Hoog.
This new bureau, which will produce text, photo and video, will be operational in the first half of 2016. It will join AFP’s existing network of 200 bureaux in 150 countries.
AFP is the second of the major global news agencies to open a bureau in Pyongyang, where few foreign media organisations are present. (Source: AFP press release)