North Korea bans cellphones

2004-06-03 10:16

Seoul - North Korea has recalled cellphones from its citizens, nearly a year and a half after the service was introduced in the communist country, South Korean media reports said on Thursday.

A North Korean official attending an inter-Korean economic meeting in Pyongyang confirmed that cellphones were banned from May 25, according to pool reports.

"It's true that cellphone use was prohibited," the official was quoted as saying.

North Korea's cellphone service began in November 2002, with products from Motorola of the United States and Nokia of Finland on the market in Pyongyang, Yonhap news agency said.

North Koreans were seen using cellphones last month when the two Koreas held minister-level rapprochement talks, it said.

Experts believe North Korea had introduced the mobile technology to make communications convenient but later realised the device caused floods of foreign culture into the reclusive country, Yonhap said.

Kim Yeon-Chul, an analyst at Korea University's Asiatic Research Center in Seoul, told Yonhap: "The North Korean authorities would be able to partially control the more-than-wanted distribution of information, at the same time enabling a cellphone's role in communication.

"But it's difficult at the moment to give a clear definition to the policy, because the subjects of the ban and its boundary are not clearly known."

- SAPA