North Korea adjusts time zone to match South
(VOVWORLD) -North Korea readjusted its time zone to match South Korea’s on Saturday and described the change as an early step toward making the longtime rivals “become one” following a landmark summit.
 Clocks show time in Seoul, left, and Pyongyang at the Peace House in the demilitarised zone in the border village of Panmunjom between North and South Korea on April 25. (Photo: EPA) |
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised to sync his country’s time zone with the South’s during his April 27 talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. A dispatch from the North’s Korean Central News Agency says that promise was fulfilled Saturday by a decree of the nation’s Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly.
The Koreas used the same time zone for decades before the North in 2015 created its own “Pyongyang Time” by setting its clocks 30 minutes behind South Korea and Japan. It said at the time that it did so to root out the legacy of Tokyo’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, when clocks in Korea were changed to be the same as in Japan.
Officials from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) are expected to travel to North Korea next week to discuss Pyongyang's request to establish a new flight route from the North Korean capital to the city of Incheon in South Korea, the ICAO said in a statement on Friday.