North Korea adjusts time zone to match South’s as ties warm

The Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea.- 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.

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. 

“Pyongyang Time” was created as tensions between the authoritarian country and the U.S. grew over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program and international sanctions aimed at dismantling it. But in recent months relations between the Koreas have warmed dramatically, with Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in pledging at their summit last week to rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons.