Interior Ministry: North Korean labourers to leave Czech Republic by year’s end

Czech authorities have stopped extending the visas of North Korean labourers in conformity with U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang, meaning they should all have left the country by the end of the year, Czech officials said on Tuesday. Several hundred North Koreans have been working in various clothing and shoe factories in the Czech Republic since 2001. But the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that their residency permits were no longer being renewed, and that labourers had gradually left since the beginning of this year. None of the workers have applied for asylum in the Czech Republic, the Ministry added. The U.N placed sanctions on North Korea in 2006, when it carried out its first nuclear test.