The ban on using U.S. passports to travel to North Korea has been extended for another year.
The State Department released a notice Monday that the travel ban would remain in effect until Aug. 31, 2020 unless Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decides to revoke it, the Associated Press reported.
The prohibition was put into place in September 2017 by former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after the death of University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier. The 22-year-old Warmbier was sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years of hard labor for allegedly committing a “hostile act” against North Korea. Security footage had emerged allegedly showing Otto Warmbier trying to steal a propaganda banner hanging in his Pyongyang hotel.
Warmbier fell into a coma under mysterious circumstances and was later returned home to the U.S. in June 2017, where he died days later.
The State Department said that there “continues to be serious risk to United States nationals of arrest and long-term detention,” if they travel to North Korea.
The travel ban was extended last year as well and applies to all people with a U.S. passport except certain categories of travelers like journalists or aid workers who are allowed to obtain a special validation passport that can be used for one trip to the rogue nation.
