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By Kwon Tae-ho, Washington Correspondent
　　
The U.S. news agency the Associated Press has become the first Western media organization to open a general bureau in Pyongyang for news and photo coverage. Questions remain, however, over whether North Korea’s permission for the bureau will lead to a full open-door policy to the rest of the world.
The AP stated on June 29 that it had signed a memorandum of understanding, the contents of which included the opening of a Pyongyang bureau, with the head of the North’s Korean Central New Agency (KCNA) in New York. The announcement followed a visit by a North Korean delegation that included KCNA President Kim Pyong-ho to AP headquarters on June 25, and talks with AP President and CEO Tom Curley.
The memorandum states that AP will have a monopoly on distributing KCNA images worldwide, while KCNA will guarantee and expand AP’s network of coverage within North Korea. This opens the way for AP reporters and photographers to be stationed permanently in North Korea.
AP President Tom Curley described the agreement as a historic occasion and that he hoped to provide coverage from North Korea to readers throughout the world. KCNA President Kim Pyong-ho also said he hoped the agreement would not only strengthen the relationship between the two agencies, but also increase understanding between the North Korea and the United States, and help improve North Korea-U.S. relations.
The AP has been negotiating with North Korea on items such as the opening of a Pyongyang bureau for the past few years. The discussion gathered pace when the KCNA invited three AP executives including Curley, Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll and International Editor John Daniszewski to Pyongyang in March this year. In May 2006, APTN, AP’s video division, became the first Western media organization to open an office in Pyongyang, but the agency’s New York headquarters did not dispatch permanent staff to the city, instead using a system whereby a producer at its Hong Kong branch made occasional reporting trips.
The only media organizations that currently have staff permanently dispatched at Pyongyang bureaus, other than the Korean-Japanese Choson Sinbo, which functions indirectly as a mouthpiece for North Korea, are China’s Xinhua News Agency and People‘s Daily, and Russia’s ITAR-TASS. Japan’s Kyodo News also runs a Pyongyang bureau but does not have staff permanently stationed there.
Attention is also focusing upon the question of how much North Korea will reveal itself to Western society through the opening of the Pyongyang bureau. Executive Editor Carroll said the AP would gather news about the country and its people in Pyongyang, just like at bureaus in other areas. There could be no censorship, she said.
　　　
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