North Korea’s foreign ministry told diplomats in Pyongyang that they should not expect the country’s borders to reopen until the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic are over, multiple informed sources told NK News.

Previously, DPRK vice minister of public health, Kim Hyong Hun, said in February that the borders would remain closed until a means to diagnose and cure the novel coronavirus is “completely” developed.

But the latest remarks — issued in a meeting by North Korean vice-minister for European affairs, Kim Son Kyong, to a group of remaining mission leaders — suggest that those conditions have been expanded.