A Chinese travel agency says the North Korean border will reopen to tourist traffic from mid-June, a response to a customer inquiry seen by NK News shows, in what would mark a major change to the DPRK’s pandemic border closures.

But rumors about an imminent North Korea reopening to China have also been circulating in border areas in recent months and have yet to come to pass, a former government official who has visited Dandong told NK News on condition of anonymity last week. The official said the rumors pointed to a late March deadline that was delayed to April and then June.