The United States will ban Americans from traveling to North Korea in the coming weeks due to the “serious risk of arrest and long-term detention,” the U.S. State Department said Friday, a month after U.S. college student Otto Warmbier died following his imprisonment by the isolated nation. The move follows the still-unexplained death of Otto F. Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who was arrested in Pyongyang in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor for stealing a propaganda poster from his hotel. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the new restriction would be formally published in the government’s Federal Register next week, and take effect one month later. "Due to mounting concerns over the serious risk of arrest and long-term detention under North Korea's system of law enforcement, the Secretary (of State) has authorised a Geographical Travel Restriction on all US citizen nationals' use of a passport to travel in, through, or to North Korea," Nauert said.Once in effect, US passports will be invalid for travel to, through and in North Korea, and individuals will be required to obtain a passport with a special validation in order to travel to or within North Korea, she said.Individuals seeking to travel to North Korea for certain limited humanitarian or other purposes may apply to the Department of State for a special validation passport, the spokesperson said.There has been movement towards a ban for a while in the US, which increased with the Warmbier death.Apart from the treatment of Americans in North Korea, tension has been increasing over North Korea's nuclear programme.This month North Korea announced it had successfully tested what it said was its first intercontinental ballistic missile, the latest in a series of tests in defiance of a UN ban. “After the 30 day grace period any U.S. national that travels to North Korea will have their passport invalidated by their government.”

North Korea marks the anniversary of the 1953 armistice agreement that ended the Korean War on July 27, a national holiday in the communist country. The United States is set to implement and enforce a ban on all US citizens travelling to North Korea according to a statement from Young Pioneer Tours, a travel agency based in China which offers Americans and others the opportunity to go on sightseeing tours of North Korea. The North “imposes unduly harsh sentences for actions that would not be considered crimes in the United States and threatens U.S. citizen detainees with being treated in accordance with ‘wartime law of the DPRK,’ ” the State Department said in the warning.
The U.S. State Department announces that it will ban travel to North Korea, following the death of Otto Warmbier.