The first tour is set to take place Feb. 12 to 18, when major celebrations are planned for the birthday of the country's late leader Kim Jong Il, one of North Korea's biggest holidays.

The dictator, eager to shut out the influence of Hollywood and K-pop, has been exalting a “shock brigade” of 300,000 teens and 20-somethings drafted into flood reconstruction.

A tour operator said it had opened bookings for trips to a North Korean border city to celebrate former leader Kim Jong Il's birthday, offering foreign tourists the first chance to visit since the pandemic.

Tour operators said in January that the North would reopen Rason, a city on the border with China, to foreign tourists, five years after Pyongyang sealed its frontiers in response to Covid-19

Koryo Tours opens bookings for North Korean border city trips to celebrate Kim Jong Il's birthday post-pandemic.

Kim Jong-il was born in 1941 in the Siberian village of Vyatskoye. He would follow his father Kim Il-sung as the second leader of North Korea, living an extravagant and eccentric lifestyle, while oppressing and starving the ordinary people.

Koryo Tours, a Beijing-based tour operator, has opened bookings for trips to Rason to celebrate Kim Jong Il's birthday. "This tour will take you to the must-see sites in Rason, No